This was a dismal week in Pirates basketball, as the boys team took two road losses to very good Seattle Christian and Cascade Christian teams.

The first game of the week was at Seattle Christian on Tuesday, Jan. 15. In their first meeting, the Warriors edged the Pirates on Vashon. Several players on the Pirates team were sick on game day, so it wasn’t looking too good going into the game.

On the opening tip, neither player even touched the ball, which surprised the refs and amused most people in the gym. The first points of the game came from a 3-pointer by sophomore Ian Stewart, but then Seattle Christian star Cody Miller responded with a 3 of his own. The two teams traded six 3-pointers back and fourth until senior Ben Whitaker broke the streak with a layup. At the end of the first quarter, Seattle Christian was winning ,14-13.

Seattle Christian fully took over in the second quarter, outscoring the Pirates 20 to 7, and the game turned into the Cody Miller show, with Miller scoring 27 of the team’s 55 points. The Pirates just did not have an answer to stop his superior shooting ability.

The second half was very evenly played, but the Pirates were not able to come back from the second quarter deficit. Whitaker had a good game, scoring 17 and playing all around good basketball. The final score was 55-46, a Seattle Christian victory.

The second game of the week was a road game against the Cascade Christian Cougars. The trouble for the Pirates in this game

was the size mismatch against a large Cougar team. It was very difficult for the Pirates to get anything going down in the paint, and the Cougars guarded the perimeter well. Junior Jacob Plihal, 6 feet, 7 inches tall, managed to hit a jumper over 6-foot, 9-inch Shawn Spencer. Aside from that success, most shot attempts against him ended with a block.

It was close at the end of the first quarter, with the Pirates down 13-11, but again things went bad in the second quarter, when the Pirates scored only 6 points. Mistakes and some questionable foul calls weighed the Pirates down, and they didn’t capitalize when they had chances. This was just an off night for what is usually a very good young Pirates squad.

Toward the end of the third quarter, the Pirates were down by more than 20 points when Stewart had a clutch 3-pointer to beat the buzzer. Stewart had another impressive play when number 34 on the Cougars had what seemed to be an easy stand-alone layup, but Stewart flew in out of nowhere and smacked the ball away.

But the game was out of reach at that point, and with around two minutes left, both coaches sent in the freshmen. The final tally was 46-35 Cascade. Whitaker again led the Pirates in scoring with 14.

“We have a tough league,” coach Andy Sears said. “We just need to keep working hard and getting better.”

— Ezra Lacina is a student at Vashon High School.