Island girls slam Rams 67-40 in Senior Night b-ball battle

The Spartans smoked the Rams so sufficiently the fire alarm was set off.

Yes, just as the halftime buzzer sounded during the Bainbridge High School varsity girls basketball team’s penultimate home game of the year Friday, Jan. 31, fans, guests and players alike found themselves shuffling out, not toward the bathrooms or concession stand, but to the rear parking lot for a lengthy mandatory hiatus as local firefighters investigated the cause of the alarm.

Officially, the culprit remains unknown, though power surges, likely the result of windy conditions, are thought to be the most probable perpetrator.

Despite the handy 67-40 victory, the unexplained interruption, coupled with it being Senior Night though not technically the last home game of the year, and the sudden injury of junior hoopster Anna Kozlosky, BHS Head Coach Karen Byers said, made for a strange sort of evening.

“This is the weirdest game,” Byers said.

“The seniors and I were talking, we’ve never had a game like this. Really, my focus was when the fire alarm [sounded], we had to evacuate [and] we basically huddled outside. We had our halftime talk out there and really kept the focus on the game not the craziness of what that was.”

Victory left the Spartan squad with an overall season record of 11-7 (9-5 in conference), and ranked sixth in the Metro League standings.

Unfortunately, the rest of the schedule, brief though it was, didn’t look promising.

The Spartans remained at home Monday to host Garfield (12-5 overall) and hit the road Friday, Feb. 7 to play their final game of the year against Eastside Catholic (16-1) — the second and first-place ranked teams in the league, respectively.

“Our last two games will be the hardest of the season,” Byers said. “That’s a bummer that we end with those two teams. So right now my focus is to do what we can with those teams, get Anna Kozlosky healthy and then see what we can do after that.”

The guests scored first last Friday, but the Spartans soon pulled away and led 12-8 by the end of the first quarter.

With moments left in the half, the home team was up 26-14 and looking good.

“We’re really playing as a team,” Byers said. “We’re really hunting for that open person and moving the ball better.”

The early moments, Byers said, were the sloppiest for the Spartans.

“The beginning was kind of a rough start,” she said. “We started kind of slow, our shooting was not at the percentage that we normally come out shooting. So I had a moment to pause, but then I knew it would turn around.”

And so it did.

Just as the fire alarm sounded, in fact, the Spartans were up 35-20 — and the delay didn’t distract them. The island squad came back hard in the third and remained ahead for the rest of the game.

Last Friday was also Senior Night, and the island team’s upperclassmen — Olivia Wikstrom, Ellie Woolever, and Paige Aichele — were recognized.

“They’ve been playing together in our development program since, well they were the first team in our development program, so fifth or sixth grade,” Byers said of the team’s top trio. “They’ve been together for a long time, and you can see that out there.”

At the close of the Ingraham win, Wikstrom was only 38 points away from becoming the highest scoring Spartan in the history of the program.

“I knew that was her goal from the start so we’ve got to get her some more buckets and she can take that over,” Byers said.

Luciano Marano | Bainbridge Island Review – Bainbridge junior Audrey Nelson reaches for a rebound last Friday. Luciano Marano | Bainbridge Island Review – Bainbridge High School junior Anna Kozlosky suffered a minor injury during last Friday’s home game against Ingraham, ultimately a Senior Night victory.