The Vashon High School Pirates girls basketball team kept up its winning ways last week, taking care of Cascade Christian Cougars, 58-32, and Life Christian, 53-40.

They played the Cougars last Tuesday without Kelly Costello, who was ill and is often an important scorer for the Pirates.

In fact, the Pirates had only six varsity players.

“We are a better squad than Cascade Christian this year, but anything can happen on the road, and with only six players, it was a little scary,” said coach Henry Porter.

“I told the girls before the game that they would have to play smart defense and hit the boards if they wanted to win this game.”

The team did just that as well as playing great team ball, according to Porter: The players totaled 17 assists.

Porter said that the team got a great effort from two bench players thrust into starting jobs.

Abby Dolmseth had 9 points, and Karisa Gibbons chipped in 8 to help the Pirates get the win.

The Pirates were led in scoring by Zelda Porter with 18, Chrissy Swope with 16, and Anneli Dolmseth and Liz Hill had 3 and 4 respectively.

Both Dolmseth and Porter played the whole game, controlling the ball and giving the team great leadership.

On Friday night, the Pirates took a short ferry ride to Tacoma to play the Eagles of Life Christian.

Life Christian has a small cracker box-sized gym, which is conducive to tight play and sometimes unorthodox contests.

That is exactly what the Pirates got in the first half as they sent the Eagles to the line 16 times in the first half, where they converted on 12 of them.

“Our expert ability at sending them to the line was a major factor in the Eagles only being down by 7 at the half time,” said coach Porter.

After some serious half-time study, the Pirates came out to win the third quarter 18 to 11.

“We started moving our feet on defense and moving the ball on offense, and that was the difference down the stretch,” said Porter.

Sophomore Swope had a particularly good effort, battling for 21 points and doing a yeoman’s job on the defensive boards.

Costello, fresh off her sick bed, pumped in 12 points and had 4 assists. Junior Guard Porter added 11 points, 11 rebounds and 4 assists, followed by Anneli Dolmseth with 5, Liz Hill with 2 and senior Lui Gue with 2.

As of last Friday, Vashon was 9 and 1 in league play, remaining tied with rival Seattle Christian for the Nisqually League Title.

If Vashon wraps up its next two games, the team will go into the league tournament tied for first place.

Vashon’s final game of the regular season will be against the Terriers of Charles Wright on Friday, Feb. 8. When this story comes out, they will have played Orting last night in the final home game.

— This article was edited by sports editor Eric Horsting from information supplied by coach Henry Porter.