The Skyline Women’s basketball team won their first game of the season against Marin College led by sophomore player Olga Faasolo who scored 22 points, shooting 10-15 from the field. Faasolo helped the team dominate as they defeated Marin 72-23 on Saturday November 2.

Throughout the first half of the game, Skyline had great ball movement along with a good amount of wide open three point attempts. Michala O’Donoghue, starting shooting guard, made the first two 3-point shots jumping out to a 6-0 lead in the beginning of the game. Faasolo, the starting center dominated the paint, and settled down the game in the first half as they led by 24 points.

However, in the second half, the Trojans started to exert pressure on the defensive side making the Mariners shot selection difficult. Focus and playing double-team on defensively, restricted Mariners sophomore Kaleah Williams to score and have an impact in the second half, while on offense, all the players for Skyline contributed themselves for the first home win of the season, as they cut off the slow ball movement for Marin’s and makes a lot of transitions fast break layup. Plus, the ball movement starting in the second half was a lot more smoothly, and they created a lot of wide open shots pulled away to a 61-17 lead, leading by 44 points at the end of the third quarter.

In the last quarter of the game, both teams played their reserves and the game ended with a 72-23 final.

As a team, the Trojans shot 40.8 percent shooting 29-71 from the field. And on the free throw performance, Skyline made over 50 percent a total of 10-17. As for the record on the rebound, the whole team has grabbed 48, compared to Marin only having 21.

Talking about the winning strategy today, Skyline Women’s head coach Chris Watters points out the whole team was doing great on defense.

“I think we did a really nice job, stopping (Williams) from Marin, that was really our focus was, to make sure that she didn’t get going, and she didn’t get hot and start scoring because the rest of their offense would open up,” Chris Watters said. “ I think defensively we did a really good job on her, and the player who weren’t guarding her did a good job of helping to make sure that she didn’t start scoring.”

As the Trojans was on fire on offensively today Michala O’Donoghue, the sophomore shooting guard explained the first two three points shots was one of the important elements for the first win of the season.

“it was really exciting. Because I was ready to go straight away. And I think that anytime that your team starts with a lead, like you get comfortable, and you’re ready to play and like you think, we got this we can win this game.”

Faasolo led all scorers with 22 points, talked about the defense communication since it was such a massive part for the first game of the season. .

“We had a lot of communication, great communication with each other. And we did. We did have this certain energy today. We were, we were ready to go today. So we knew what we had to do on defense, and we just had to talk it up.”

The next women’s game will be held on November 15 here at Skyline against Siskiyous in the first game of a tournament.