Despite the Eagles hard fight, Mercer Island eventually broke down their wall of defense and beat Issaquah 54-62. Each player put out their best effort and the team worked well together, making seamless passes across the court, but it was not quite enough to beat out Mercer Island.

You could feel the Eagles excitement the moment they stepped onto the court, and the energy was only boosted by the large student section and other fans in the crowd that kept the game exciting. Before the game Coach Brad Valentine before the game he said, “We’re super excited to get it going and see what they can do. We’ve had 13 practices as a team, so I feel like they’ve figured out how to work together, and we’ve watched film of Mercer Island from last year to familiarize ourselves with their moves, so I think we’re ready.”

Issaquah started off the first quarter very strong; Mercer Island scored the first two points of the game, but Issaquah quickly matched it and by the end of first quarter Issaquah was in the lead 17-15. Issaquah continued to fight hard, scoring eleven more points before half time which put them just in reach of Mercer Island with 30 points. Senior Coben Kaveny had the ball milliseconds before the timer for half time went off, and made a 2-pointer right at the buzzer but the referees would not count it.

Senior Rowan Dillon, first year member on the varsity team said, “The game felt good and we got the jitters out, but I feel like overall we competed well and Mercer Island is a good team so they put up a good fight. We put up a good fight and it just came down to the very wire.” As the third quarter was counting down Issaquah started to slip just a bit, but stayed within reach of catching Mercer Island. Issaquah called a timeout during the final six minutes and got their game plan in place for their last push to catch up. Subbing senior Tommy Reisner in to play, Reisner made a three-pointer shot with just 29.6 seconds to go, but in the end, the Eagles could not catch up and Mercer Island won the game 62-54.

Issaquah was missing one of their star players, 6’9’’junior Danny Howe, due to sickness this week, and is one of Issaquah’s key shooters so with his added points the Eagles might have been able to make it, but we’ll just have to see how they play at their next game. Senior Saxon Cullimore said after the game that “we played well but we also have a lot of work to do on both sides of the ball. We need to just focus on our next game for now and come out hard against Liberty this Friday.”

Coming up this Friday Dec. 6, the Eagles will be going against Liberty at Liberty High School so come on out to support!