Mount Si’s girls’ tennis team had a very tough test to open their season last Tuesday, March 23, and the Mercer Island Islanders showed why that was such a difficult challenge for the Wildcat ladies, sweeping scarlet and gray.

Mount Si was not able to get much going as they fell in all seven matches played. There was one bright spot of note, and that was from one of their top players. Junior Bailey Barnard took on the Islanders’ Erica Baska, and after Baska took the first set, Barnard scored a 6-4 win in the second frame to force a deciding third set, which went down to the wire before the Wildcat fell 6-7 to the Mercer Island opponent. Even though she lost, Barnard felt she accomplished something.

“It felt so good to beat Mercer Island in a set,” she said.

Only one other point was scored by the Wildcats in the other three singles matches combined; that was by senior Kaitlyn Usselman in her match against Mercer Island’s Julia Zook.

It was pretty much the same story in the doubles, as Mount Si pairs only were able to score three points total in the three matches against the vaunted Islander competition.

Wildcat coach Eric Hanson, despite the defeat, was thrilled to get the season underway. “This was the first varsity match on our new courts and the venue was outstanding,” Hanson said, referring to the new tennis courts built at Mount Si replacing the previous facility which was demolished to make way for new portable classrooms last summer. Due to the courts being finished late last fall, the Wildcat boys’ team did not get to play on the new surfaces.

It was not going to get any easier, either; last Thursday, March 25, they were scheduled to face another very tough team in the Bellevue Wolverines, but Mother Nature stepped in and postponed that contest to this week.