By Yolanda Feng

The girls’ varsity basketball team fought against the Washington Eagles on Jan. 13 in the highly anticipated Battle of the Birds game at Kezar Stadium. The Lady Cardinals failed to defeat the Eagles, losing the game 43–25.

The Cards did not have a good start. The Eagles were first to get on the scoreboard. Senior co-captain and guard Audrey Ng scored one of two free throws, claiming the first point for the Cardinals. Halfway into the quarter, the Cardinals were down 7–3. Sophomore guard Katelyn Lee scored four points in the first quarter, delivering her second layup with 1:51 left on the clock. At the end of the quarter, the Lady Cardinals were trailing behind 12–9.

During the second quarter, senior co-captain, guard and forward Madison Toy scored a three-point shot against the Eagles. However, that was the only successful shot in the second quarter, leaving the Lady Cardinals down by eight points. Halfway through the quarter, the team began to lose hope and gave up, according to Toy and senior co-team captain and guard Erin Li. The team was unable to score and went on a six-minute scoring drought. “In the first quarter I thought we were doing fine,” Toy said. “ But all of a sudden in the second quarter, we just kind of fell through the cracks and fell apart.” By the end of the half, the Cards were behind 20–12.

The Cards opened up the third quarter by executing their game plan. However, the Cardinals were not able to trap the Eagles’ guards as they had planned. “Wash’s guards were just really fast,” Li said. “They had really good passes and we couldn’t rotate well, so they scored on us really easily.” Three minutes into the third quarter, the Eagles were able to rack up 11 points, leaving the Cardinals trailing by 16 points. The Lady Cardinals were able to earn a few more points through two-point shots and free throws, ending the third quarter down 31–19.

“They had really good passes and we couldn’t rotate well, so they scored on us really easily.”

In the last quarter, the Eagles committed numerous fouls against the Cardinals, allowing them to pick up six points from free throws. However, the gap continued to widen as the Eagles proceeded to score heavily in the last five minutes. The huge crowd gave the players a great amount of nervousness, which affected them throughout the entire game. “Everything was so loud,” Toy said. “It seemed like we were all a bunch of deer in headlights.” The game finished leaving the Lady Cardinals outscored by 18 points, 43–25.

Despite disappointment from the loss, the team is trying to boost both their offense and defense. In recent practices, they have been targeting their weak spots, hoping to improve on their accuracy of shots and aggressiveness on the ball. “We need to focus on scoring because we get a lot of open shots, and we take them, they just don’t get in,” Li said.

The Cardinals currently stand in third place in Division 1 of the Academic Athletic Association league this season, holding a record of 1–1.

The Lady Cards will take on the Galileo Lions at Galileo at 5:30 p.m. today.