Eagles nab first league win of the season

By Shaun Scott • January 17, 2017 2:45 pm
Eagles nab first league win of the season

The losing streak is officially in the rearview mirror for the Issaquah Eagles girls basketball team.

The Eagles, which had lost its first seven KingCo Conference games, earned a 48-39 victory against the Newport Knights on Jan. 13 at Issaquah High School. The Eagles improved their overall record to 6-8 (1-7 league) with the win. Newport dropped to 6-7 overall. Eagles’ head coach Jackie Bykonen was jovial following the first KingCo victory of the 2016-17 season.

“We’re very excited. It was a total team effort tonight. We have been stressing the importance of being a team and we played like a team. We had balanced scoring and played great team defense. It was awesome,” Bykonen said.

The Eagles stingy defense held Newport’s offense to a meager two points in the second quarter. The Eagles led the Knights 13-12 at the end of the first quarter but extended the lead to 24-14 by halftime.

“Newport is a very guard oriented team and I think we matched up with them well,” Bykonen said. “The thing we had been struggling with is keeping that intensity for four quarters. We finally did that.”

The Eagles were clicking so well in the first half that Bykonen decided to keep her team on the court at halftime instead of heading for the locker room, which is the customary tradition in the basketball world.

“We wanted to stay on the court and keep that energy going,” she said.

Eagles’ sophomore sharpshooter Lucy Stewart scored a team-high 17 points for the Eagles. Mariah VanHalm added 10 points as well. Newport head coach Travis Whitaker said his team didn’t recover from the second quarter where they scored just two points.

“We hit a lull there in the second quarter and it seemed to carry over for us into the third quarter. We got to be able to play more consistent basketball for four quarters,” Whitaker said. “We just got to keep getting better. We got a good team. They’re focused and they will keep working.”

Newport sophomore Nicole Chan scored a team-high 13 points in the loss for the Knights. Knights’ sophomore Anateya Sommerville added eight points as well.