Before every game junior guard Blaire Brady hands her Issaquah teammates a small piece of paper with words of wisdom on it.
Perhaps none of her selected passages were more fitting, however, than Friday night’s verse from coaching legend John Wooden.
“It says, ‘The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team,'” Brady noted.
In a battle with Newport for the top slot in the KingCo Crest, the Eagles used an all-around team effort on both sides of the ball to crush the previously undefeated Knights 56-34, improving to 6-0 in KingCo and 9-1 overall.
“It’s all about teamwork,” junior Maddey Pflaumer said. “That’s the only way that we’ll get anywhere, and that’s the only way we get to the level that we play at, is with our teammates.”
Issaquah’s team defense played a crucial role Friday. A tandem of defenders harassed the KingCo’s leading scorer, Betsy Kingma, holding her to 4-for-20 shooting, and 11 points — 10 below her season average. Brady, Taryn Holmes and Brooke Miller shared defensive duties on the Seattle Pacific University-bound Kingma.
“It’s hard work to defend a kid who can flat out just shoot, so we tried to give them appropriate rests, and we kind of rotated through by committee,” Issaquah head coach Kathy Gibson said.
The Eagles, who led 30-24 at halftime, really clamped down in the second half, holding the Knights to 3-for-28 shooting, and 10 total second-half points. Newport hit just 12 of 53 (23 percent) of its field goals for the game.
“We were out of sync the whole game I felt like,” Knight’s coach Travis Whitaker said. “They are very similar to us in that they want to pressure to take you out of what you want to do. We fell in to that.”
Issaquah spread the ball around on offense, as seven of the eight players who took the floor scored. The Eagles trailed once, going down 2-0 in the first quarter. They quickly snagged the lead, and never gave it back. Issaquah went on a 13-0 run from the 2:21 mark of the third quarter and 3:51 mark of the fourth, putting the game out of reach for good.
Pflaumer, who scored seven points in the first quarter and seven in the third, led Issaquah with 14 points. Brady added 11, and Holmes scored 10 — six of which came in the fourth quarter.
Asked how important Friday’s win was, the Eagles remained modest.
“Newport’s a really talented team, and it’s a fun win,” Brady said. “We have a long road ahead of us, against a lot of great teams, and we’ve just got to keep building off of this.”
Gibson agreed.
“It’s just another step on our way to hopefully reaching post-season play,” she said.
Skyline can’t overcome slow start
Skyline couldn’t overcome a slow first quarter as it fell 46-39 to Redmond Friday night.
The Spartans trailed 15-6 after one quarter, and 24-14 at halftime. Kassia Fortier led Skyline with 14 points, while Rachel Shim contributed eight.
The Spartans fell to 2-4 in league and 5-5 overall.
Garfield upends Eastlake
A rough second quarter proved to much of a deficit for Eastlake to dig out of Friday, as the Wolves fell 63-46 to Garfield.
Eastlake, which trailed 17-14 after the first quarter, was outscored 19-3 in the second quarter. Kendra Morrison led the Wolves with a team-high 15 points. Demarea Caples had a game-best 16 for the Bulldogs.
Eastlake fell to 2-4 in league and 6-4 overall with the loss.
EC falls to Nathan Hale
Eastside Catholic carried a 14-10 halftime lead to the locker room Friday night, but couldn’t hang on, falling 42-33 to Nathan Hale.
Shannon Graves led the Crusaders with nine points. Eastside fell to 3-4 in the Metro and 6-5 overall with the loss.
