Knights lose to Eagles in KingCo contest

The second quarter ended up being the difference in a matchup between the Newport Knights and Issaquah Eagles girls basketball teams.

The Eagles, which had lost its first seven KingCo Conference games, earned a 48-39 victory against the Newport Knights on Jan. 13 at Issaquah High School. The Eagles improved their overall record to 6-8 (1-7 league) with the win. Newport dropped to 6-7 overall. The Eagles stingy defense held the Knights offense to a meager two points in the second quarter. Issaquah led Newport 13-12 at the end of the first quarter but extended the lead to 24-14 by halftime. Newport head coach Travis Whitaker said his team didn’t recover from the second quarter where they scored just two points.

“We hit a lull there in the second quarter and it seemed to carry over for us into the third quarter. We got to be able to play more consistent basketball for four quarters,” Whitaker said. “We just got to keep getting better. We got a good team. They’re focused and they will keep working.”

Newport sophomore Nicole Chan scored a team-high 13 points in the loss for the Knights. Knights’ sophomore Anateya Sommerville added eight points as well.

Eagles’ head coach Jackie Bykonen was jovial following the first KingCo victory of the 2016-17 season.

“We’re very excited. It was a total team effort tonight. We have been stressing the importance of being a team and we played like a team. We had balanced scoring and played great team defense. It was awesome,” Bykonen said. “Newport is a very guard oriented team and I think we matched up with them well. The thing we had been struggling with is keeping that intensity for four quarters. We finally did that.”