Girls basketball
by Maia Lewis-Shunk
Orcas High School student
The Lady Vikings basketball season has officially begun! We are starting with fresh faces and young women who are beginning to form into an unstoppable team.
With a great coaching staff, Gregg Sasan, Haley Cruz Winchell, Sada Ashcraft, Stephanie Shaw and team manager Phaedra Osborn, we have many leaders to look up to.
The season is looking to be an exceptional one. From the beginning of the season to now, the Lady Vikings have strengthened ball handling and shooting skills, conditioned our bodies to play in a full game and most importantly, worked as a team. Each girl has built a commitment to the sport.
After the first loss of the season against Bush Academy, it motivated everyone to work harder at each practice. For one week we put in the work, and on Dec. 8, Coupeville came to the Vikings home. The Lady Vikings came out strong but were down at the half.
With all the fans cheering them on, the second half they held the Wolves to only 7 points. After a hard fought battle it finally paid off with a 31-27 win for the Vikings.
The Lady Vikings will take on our rivals Friday Harbor at the Friday Harbor High School on Friday, Dec. 21 at 7:30 p.m. and will travel to Darrington, Jan. 4 for a game at 4:30 p.m. Come cheer on our Vikings to victory!
Boys basketball
by Tomas Holmes and Kupono Anuenue
Orcas High School students
With the return of Viking boys basketball came a lot of excitement throughout the community. The team came in with a new approach after the loss of six dominant seniors and coach Corey Wiscomb.
After only having two returning varsity players, Max Clark and Tomas Holmes, we are working hard to introduce some of the younger players with the faster-paced play of varsity basketball.
We started the season off on the wrong side of a couple lop-sided games against 1A and 2A teams. The first of these games was on Friday, Nov. 30 against Bush Academy. We hung in the game within 10 points for the first two quarters but having limited numbers, our guys became fatigued very quickly. After the third quarter, we were down about 15 and by the end of the game, we had lost 47-65.
Our next match-up was the following day versus Meridian. We started off keeping pace with them, but by the end of the game they had taken complete control and we lost 51-83.
Our next game was also against a 1A school but a little better of a match-up with them being on the smaller side of the 1A schools.
Coupeville came to Orcas on Dec. 8 and throughout the game our boys played outstanding defense, allowing only 4 points in each of the first two quarters and going into the half up 26-8. Again, having limited numbers affected our boys with us getting much more tired at the end of the game. We allowed 10 in the third and 22 in the fourth. We held strong though, winning the game 48-40. Our most recent game was on Wednesday, Dec. 12 against Auburn Adventist, a potential playoff competitor for us. Being down a few players due to them being in drivers education, we played the game with only five players, and we had one foul out in the fourth quarter, resulting in a 67-33 loss.
We feel great about our season so far and are excited for league play to start. We believe with the right mentality and right play-style, we have the potential to win league.
