Despite Falcon Ashlinn Prosch’s game-leading 11 points, the South Whidbey girls basketball team is still searching for a victory.
The girls lost 40-30 against the Spartans from Forks Thursday night in a non-league contest and fell to 0-5.
Falcon starters Cayla Calderwood, Alannah Alber, Riley O’Sullivan, Courtney Linehan and Prosch were on fire when the game began, hustling the ball down court and scoring first on a Prosch layup following a steal.
Halfway through the first quarter, Alber stole the ball, then made a smooth pass to Calderwood under the net; she scored, O’Sullivan recovered the ball and sent it to Alber, who tipped it in for a quick double shot and four points.
With plays like that, what could go wrong? South Whidbey led at period’s end by two, 10-8.
The second quarter started with drives to the net by both teams, but the Spartan ball began to consistently find the sweet spot on the inside — Forks guard Kylea Allen alone accounted for several unanswered scores — while the Falcon offense took a nose- dive with errant passing and a curious inability to get the ball through the hoop.
O’Sullivan, Linehan and Calderwood did their level best on defense — O’Sullivan’s relentless speed confused the other team’s efforts at several points — but Spartans Allen and Gwen Gillett combined for 15 points to the Falcon’s seven, and South Whidbey began to lose the edge, falling behind 23-17 at the half.
“Yeah, we continue having a hard time getting inside to the low post,” Falcon coach Henry Pope said.
“We just have to work harder getting the ball through.”
The Forks defense toughened up big time and settled into hard-core coverage, maintaining their lead and not making any mistakes.
The Falcons managed to outgun the Spartans by a single point, thanks to several fine line shots by Prosch and Alber, but Forks still led 32-17 after the third.
Both sides were visibly tired in the final quarter, but Spartan Allen was able to up the ante to keep her team on top with three inside layups that should have been blocked. The final was 40-30.
“My hat’s off to them, they played a fine game,” Pope said. “They shot well and executed with a fine sense of precision.
“As always, though, our girls played hard to the last minute.”
Spartan coach Dave Zellar wasn’t altogether happy with the level of his team’s shooting.
“We were way off getting our shots to go in,” Zellar said. “But I believe that if you take care of the little things, good things happen; we controlled the ball, played excellent defense and didn’t play reckless. And we won.
“That being said, South Whidbey scared us in the first quarter, and I’m proud that our girls didn’t get down on themselves,” he added.
Prosch scored 11 points to lead all players, fellow Falcon Alber posted six, Calderwood four and O’Sullivan had a fine three-pointer in the second quarter.
