Going into their last home game of 2015 on Saturday, December 12, the varsity girls basketball team defeated the Yerba Buena Warriors in a preseason game 43-7.

Immediately, it was clear the Eagles had taken the game in the first quarter. Junior Audrey Jones started the team’s offensive surge by drawing a foul and putting Los Altos up by two points. The Eagles increased their lead with offensive contributions come from seven different players. Los Altos finished the quarter defensively, ending with a score of 27-0.

With a clear lead, Los Altos slowed down the offense and only scored six points throughout the second quarter with four points from junior Millie Carp and two from freshman Mahika Gupta. Although the Eagles kept the Warriors scoreless, it was clear that their lack of communication was the main cause of consistent turnovers in the form of bad passes. The Eagles went into the third quarter 33-0.

The third quarter saw less action from the Eagles and more from the Warriors.  At the beginning of the third quarter, Yerba Buena scored their first points, but Los Altos quickly replied with a free throw from sophomore Jamie Kesten to add to the score 34-2. In the last minute and wide open, Jamie received a pass and scored from the center to increase the lead to 39-7.

The last quarter included a lot of ball movement from the Eagles. However, the efforts to set up a full half court offense resulted in a lot of turnovers.

At 43-7, Jamie scored the only points in the last quarter. Los Altos’ strong zone prevented Yerba Buena from making anymore shots.

“We could have done better,” said Jamie. “When playing teams when you are up by a lot, it is kind of hard to stay focused, [to] keep doing your best, [to continue] playing to your level and not sinking down to the level of the other team. We [had] people who do not normally get minutes, get minutes, and that was good.”

With the only games Los Altos played being preseason games, they look to improve for league play coming up in the season. Although the Eagles played a solid defensive game, head coach Jaclyn Brode believes there is more work to be done.

“[Regarding] defensive spacing, we’re overcrowding and overhelping at times, and so we need to keep to our areas on defense,” Brode said. “We give away a lot of rebounds so we need to get bodies on people, push them out of the way and get our rebounds.”

The Eagles’ next game is against Presentation on Friday, December 18. The next home game is the rivalry game against Mountain View on January 12, 2016.