Eagle winning streak ends at 16

By Rob McCallum
Published: Thursday, January 18, 2007 1:01 PM CST
Mt. Shasta News

One of the longest winning streaks in the history of the College of the Siskiyous is over.

The Eagle women's basketball team fell at Butte on Jan. 10 for their first loss in 17 games. They started another one four nights later with a win over Feather River, and are still 18-2 on the season.

Their first loss since Nov. 12 came in the Oroville gym where Eagle teams have had little success over the years, and last week was no different in the 71-45 defeat.

“We had probably our worst shooting night all year,” coach Tom Powers said. “We had a lot of open shots, but maybe were too wide open.”

The Eagles made only three of 23 3-point field goal attempts and shot 47 percent from the free throw line in the loss. Butte, meanwhile, shot 59 percent from the floor, including 13 threes.

Karlee Myers, a Chico native playing in front of a hometown crowd, led COS with 11 points. Natasha Robinson had 9 points and 4 assists. A large crowd turned out at Cowan Gym for Chico High grads Kristi Arness and Myers, and Yuba City natives Chelsea Keuhner and Katie Pollak.

Powers lamented the loss of point guard Amanda Harris to injury two weeks affecting the team's offense. The New Zealand native was averaging 5.8 assists and 3.9 steals per game until breaking her hand against Southwestern College on Jan. 5.

Powers said that they might get Harris back in the lineup sooner than expected, and are hopeful for the second half of conference play.

“It's proving to be a little more a transition than we hoped it would be,” Powers said. “We're not getting those easy buckets we were and having to work a lot more for them. It woke us up a bit.”

The Eagles got back on the winning side Saturday at Feather River in Quincy, 66-53. But Siskiyous' accuracy didn't get any better early on as FRC led 32-27 in the first half.

But just before halftime, Pollak hit consecutive 3-pointers to spark COS. The Eagles then built a 10-point and maintained it until the final buzzer.

Keuhner led COS with 19 points, Pollak had 15 and freshman Jennifer Whipple had 11 in front of another hometown crowd. Whipple was an all-star for tiny Greenville High, just 22 miles down Hwy. 70 from Quincy.

“We had just about the whole town of Greenville out there,” Powers said. “Jennifer came off the bench and did a nice job for us.”

The Eagles return home on Saturday to face archrival Shasta at 5:30 p.m. COS and the Knights have split in recent installments of the game, with each winning on the other's court the past two years.

Mount Shasta graduate Jerry Brown has Shasta 15-6 this season, but the Knights also saw their long winning streak come to an end in the GVC opener to Lassen.

“Shasta seems to keep everybody close,” Powers said. “They're kind of like us in that they shoot well one night, then not another. Hopefully we can catch them on a poor shooting night.”

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