Sports briefs

Islander soccer honored by KingCo conference

The Mercer Island High School girls soccer team was honored during the honored during last week’s KingCo conference trophy presentation. Several players on the team, which won the conference title, were also honored.

Head coach Adam Gervis was named the KingCo 3A coach of the year, and named to the KingCo first team were: Ellen Haas, Mary Hill and Erin Bourguignon. Named to the second team were Lauren Frank and Tara Nielson, and to the KingCo third team: Rachel Pedreira, Beth Felker, Claire Jensen, Celina Solomon and Corey Goelz.

The team played its first round of the state competition last night against Auburn Mountainview in Islander Stadium, after Reporter deadline.

Islanders volleyball faces uphill battle at districts

It had been a long journey for the Mercer Island girls volleyball team to earn the top spot heading into the Sea-King District tournament last weekend. The Islanders battled through a season of injuries and sickness, losing to the top KingCo team twice during the regular season before they were able to knock off Mount Si during the championship game of the KingCo tournament.

After that long-awaited victory, the Islanders kicked off their district tournament at the No. 1 seed, facing Holy Names Academy, which entered the tournament seeded No. 4 overall. It was the first game in what became an uphill battle to fight for a place at state, which never came.

On Thursday evening, Holy Names beat the Islanders, 3-0, with the final scores of 25-13, 25-20 and 30-28.

The Cougars played earlier that same evening, beating Bainbridge 3-1 to advance to the quarterfinals against the Islanders.

In the first game, Holy Names quickly found its groove, jumping to a 6-2 lead while the Islanders struggled to settle into their game. In game two, the Islanders started to fight back, keeping the score closer through the game. After a huge rally halfway through, Mercer Island closed the score to 15-16 before tying it at 16 points and snatching the lead 17-16. But their first lead of the series was short-lived when Holy Names capitalized on a missed Islander hit over the net. Despite their best efforts, the Islanders couldn’t find the window of opportunity they need to take and hold onto the lead, as they lost game two, 25-20.

In game three, the Islanders looked the most like a team that stood a chance against Holy Names. Mercer Island started with an early lead, and held onto it for a while as the teams battled back and forth across the net, fighting for every point they put on the board. At one point, the Islanders held a five-point lead over the Cougars, but were not able to hold onto it, as Holy Names carefully surged back up to retake the lead 20-19. From then until the end of the game 10 points later, each side fought valiantly, making big saves and even bigger spikes, looking to knock the other team off balance. Holy Names was finally able to make the score swing its way with a 30-28 win.

On Saturday afternoon, the Islanders started off by beating Juanita to knock the Rebels out of the tournament. Mercer Island won 3-1 to advance to the consolation semifinals. By a stroke of bad luck, the Islanders found themselves facing a familiar team: Mount Si.

The Wildcats had advanced to the district semifinals early that morning, where they lost to Seattle Prep, the eventual district champions. This bumped Mount Si down into the consolation bracket, where they faced the Islanders. Mercer Island lost in four games. The final scores were 12-25, 10-25, 20-25 and 15-25.

Swim team wins districts by 89-point margin

The girls swim and dive team finished the Sea-King District tournament at Mary Wayte Pool on Saturday evening, taking the district title by an 89-point margin, ahead of second-place Juanita.

Mercer Island won with 289 points, while Juanita took second with 200, Bellevue finished in third with 167.5 points, Bainbridge was in fourth with 159 and Holy Names was fifth with 118 points.

Some standout performances included freshman Grace Wold earning district titles in two events, the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 57.74 and the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:07.31. Both finishes were All-American qualifying times.

Senior captain Jennifer Pak also had a phenomenal evening winning the 100-yard freestyle race in a time of 54.32 seconds.

IMS cross country finishes stellar season

The Islander Middle School cross country team recently finished a strong season with over 100 runners this year. The team competed at the Foothills League district championship event held on Oct. 20 at Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah, where the sixth-grade girls team won, beating out nine other teams.

Alexa Bauman finished second, Piper Casey was fourth and Victoria Gersch finished ninth overall in the sixth-grade girls race. The sixth-grade boys finished second overall, with Jake Jenkins taking third and Tiger McBurney in 10th. In the seventh- and eighth-grade boys race, the IMS team finished second with a district race win by Peter Mahoney, who was followed by Austin Scarff in third place.

The seventh- and eighth-grade girls won their race by one point. Alida Scalzo finished seventh overall, and Sarah Bjarnson finished in ninth place.

The team was coached by Cate Pospisil, Doug Davis, and Bob and Sarah Lesko.

Jr. Hoopsters basketball camp registration

Registration is open for the winter basketball camp with the MIHS girls basketball players for Mercer Island girls in grades one through six.