For the first time this season, the bleachers in Mercer Island High School filled with parents and basketball fans while the pep band warmed up before the Mercer Island boys and girls took on Issaquah in the first regular game of the season. Both the boys and girls lost their matches against the 4A Eagles, in the first non-conference test of the season.
The girls kicked off the night with a 60-44 loss to the stronger and faster Eagles.
Issaquah surged early in the game, taking a commanding 17-9 lead at the end of the first quarter, before adding another 17 points to their lead in the last eight minutes of the first half. The Islanders’ junior guard, Hailey Gullstad, put up all of Mercer Island’s first nine points and added several more during the second quarter as the Islanders scored 12 to close Issaquah’s lead to 34-21 at the half.
Gullstad finished the half with 11 points, on her way to a total of 20 during the team’s loss, while teammate Sarah Taylor had two points during the first 16 minutes. She finished with four points against the Eagles.
One area the Islanders struggled with in the first half was rebounding and grabbing both offensive and defensive opportunities. Assistant coach Beth Christofferson said the team talked about rebounds during the half break, focusing their second half on being stronger off the boards.
In the third quarter, the Mercer Island girls were unable to keep Issaquah from driving to the basket, and the Eagles surged to a 43-28 lead with only eight minutes left in the game. The trend continued as the Eagles cruised to a dominating 60-44 win.
Issaquah’s Maddey Pflaumer, a junior forward, finished the night with either team’s only double-double, picking up 19 points for the Eagles and snatching 11 rebounds on her team’s way to victory. Eagles teammate Mackenzie Schiltz, a junior guard, finished the night with 13 points.
“The girls did a great job of adjusting,” said Christofferson. “They kept fighting — even when Issaquah went on a run and they could have just stepped back, they kept going.”
Christofferson said the team will be working on its offensive game, making sure it has several good passes before heading to the hoop.
“We were kind of dribble-happy,” Christofferson said of the Islanders’ performance against Issaquah. She added that Hannah Lilly and Hailey Gullstad had great nights, leading the team in rebounds, which is something Christofferson said the coaches were proud of.
After the girls game, the Mercer Island boys took to the court, led by first-year head coach Gavin Cree, looking for his first win as the program’s leader. The Islanders weren’t able to capitalize on chances and lost to the Eagles 56-51.
The Islanders jumped out early, grabbing a three-point lead in the opening moments of the game, a lead that they never held again on Wednesday night. The score yo-yoed back and forth with the Islanders, often gaining baskets to get within three points of the smaller Eagles team, but it was never quite enough to push Mercer Island ahead.
“I’d like to credit the Issaquah players and coaches. They just made more plays than we did,” said Cree. “We got off to a great start, hitting a three and taking a charge on the first two possessions of the game. I just didn’t think we sustained the level of energy we needed to, in order to beat good teams. I was proud of the way we fought at the end of the game. We never gave up.”
Cree was happy with how some of the younger players stepped up and took advantage of possibilities, showing him that the team is deep and just needs to capitalize on opportunities.
The Islanders were down by seven going into the half, with Issaquah leading 27-20. Senior Kaj Sherman had five points in the first half, Jeremy Hagen picked up three, as did Gabe Fruchter and junior Quinn Sterling had six points. Issaquah’s Joe Evans had 11 points during the Eagles’ first half, while Derek Quan had eight points in the first 16 minutes.
In the third quarter Mercer Island fell 10 points behind the Eagles, as the Islanders missed key foul shots from the line, but started to close the gap in the waning minutes of the game, after a big three-point shot with 29 seconds left in the game from the Islanders’ Sean Hughes to take the score to 53-49.
In the end, Sherman posted 13 points for the team, while Sean Hughes had eight and Sterling finished with 10 points. Issaquah’s Nick Price posted a 13-point run during the game, while Evans had 16 overall. Quan finished off his game with eight points, and Nik Landdeck had seven.
The boys played Kamiak on Friday night in another non-conference match-up where Cree said the team was going to have to defend the three-point line better.
“I thought they [Issaquah] got a lot of penetration on us, so we’ll be working on that,” he said. “We’ve got to block out better. There’s no excuse for us not dominating the boards every time out.”
The boys travel to Juanita this Friday for the first league game of the season, starting at 6 p.m., and will take on O’Dea at Bellevue College in the Bellevue College Classic at 2 p.m. on Dec. 12.
The girls also travel to Juanita on Dec. 11 to play with a 7:30 p.m. start time and host Enumclaw on Saturday, Dec. 12, at 7:30 p.m. and Interlake on Monday, Dec. 14, at 7:30 p.m.
