Coming into Tuesday’s game against Lakes, coach Chris Carr knew there was some rust on the Auburn Mountainview girls basketball machine.
What he didn’t expect was the rust would clog the gears of the fourth-ranked Lions, who fell 53-42 to their South Puget Sound League 3A rival at Lakes High School.
With the Auburn Mountainview gym shut down for much of last week because of the winter storm, the Lions didn’t have a chance to practice.
“We planned a little bit for Lakes on Monday, but we hadn’t really touched a basketball for six days,” Carr said. “We knew we’d be rusty. I thought we’d shake it off, but I just don’t think we ever got over that rustiness.”
It was Auburn Mountainview’s first loss to an in-state team this season.
The Lions dropped three games to out-of-state teams at the Nike Tournament of Champions in Phoenix.
Against Lakes, the Auburn Mountainview girls (4-1 league, 12-4 overall) struggled to get the ball into senior posts Caitlin Carr and Hattie Kosko.
“(Lakes coach Dave McEachern) did a nice job of game planning, but our guards just weren’t patient enough,” Carr said. “We just weren’t patient enough to wait for Lakes to make a mistake. I thought our guards looked panicked.”
Despite trailing just 20-18 to the Lancers (3-2, 12-3) at the half, the struggling Lions had committed 21 turnovers.
“When 28 of the team’s 33 turnovers for the game come from the guards, you’re not doing well,” Carr said.
Although Auburn Mountainview rallied in the third quarter, at one point leading by four points, the Lancers responded with a 17-2 run, putting away the Lions and avenging their 55-35 loss in the teams’ previous meeting on Jan. 6.
Auburn Mountainview finished with just four players scoring, including Carr’s 19 points and senior guard Aalia Braboy’s 11. Senior Erika Lombardo added seven points and junior Aly Carr had five.
Jamesha Holland’s 19 points and Tyanna Barton’s 13 led Lakes.
Although no loss is a good thing, Carr admitted that this one might have come at the right time.
“I would love to go through a season 20-0 and just have our kids be dominant all the time. But maybe this is a wakeup call for our kids, that any given day, we can pay poorly and get beat,” he said. “Ultimately, maybe we’ll look back at this loss as a turning point.”
He continued:
“We need our seniors to be leaders, and (Tuesday) I thought just two of them showed up to lead,” Carr said. “And that’s disappointing because I expect more out of them. It’s their last season. We lost our composure down the stretch.”
The Lions reboounded against Decatur (2-4, 5-9) on Wednesday, posting a 38-18 win. Braboy had 15 points in the contest with Caitlin Carr adding 15.
The Lions travel to Peninsula (0-4, 3-11) today.
