After getting beat handily in the first match up against the Peninsula Pirates, the EvCC Trojan women looked for revenge against those same Pirates in their home gym. With home court advantage, things looked much different in the first half between both teams. In the first meeting, the Pirates jumped out to an early15 point lead and never looked back. This time the Trojans were more experienced and ready for the challenge, as things were neck and neck most of the way through the first half.

Breezy Shore for the Trojans started strong early, hitting the first three pointer of the game, and keeping up the pressure with her signature defense. Even with the EvCC defense playing well, the Pirates were scoring at will underneath the basket and hitting timely threes from beyond the arc.

Peninsula built a 10 point lead at the end of the 2nd period, but Jess Reiter hit a three with 30 seconds to play to cut the deficit to eight going into halftime. Reiter went 3-3 from the three point strike in the first half, leading the Trojans in scoring with nine points. Imani Smith led the Pirates with 12 points.

The second half for the Trojans was a different story in this game. Through the third period and most of the fourth, EvCC kept pace with the dominant Pirates. However, midway through the fourth Peninsula built a lead that couldn’t be overcome by the Trojans. One of the main reasons for EvCC’s struggles was the offensive inconsistency of not being able to make shots when the Trojans needed them most. These struggles let Peninsula build huge leads, which put EvCC out of the game.

Reiter, who went 3-3 in the first half from three point range wouldn’t hit a single shot for the rest of the game. Reiter was 0-6 from the three point line in the second half, giving her nine points for the entire game which was her total from the first half. When asking Reiter about the offensive struggles, she had this to say, “shots just weren’t going in for me, the defense didn’t do anything different against me in the second half. My shots just wouldn’t drop, I feel for us to get better offensively we need to find a better flow.” Shore, who is the teams leading scorer this season, also struggled offensively shooting 2-12 the entire game.

With these troubles, the Pirates were able to jump out to a double digit lead in the final minutes. Peninsula ended up winning by a score of 67-43 on the road against the Trojans, beating EvCC for the second time this season. The win for Peninsula moves them into a first place tie with the Bellevue Bulldogs in league play. Talking with Assistant Coach Zach Wilde after the game, he had this to say about his team, “I felt pretty good about the first three quarters, but I would like to have the fourth quarter back. If you look at the stats, we gave up 30 turnovers tonight, that’s a lot for us and good teams will do that to you. I’m really proud of the way we played and we are getting close, really close to our potential as a team.”

This loss drops the Trojans to 5-5 on the season in league play and 12-12 in overall record. They currently hang on to that fourth and final playoff spot in league standings with a two game lead over Olympic. EvCC will play their next game on the road against a good 8-2 Skagit Valley team. The game is at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016 in the Mount Vernon Campus Fitness Center.