The long and sometimes frustrating basketball season came to an end for the Oak Harbor High School boys team Wednesday evening.

Just like the previous 14 straight WesCo North games and for the 19th time this season, the Wildcats came up on the short end of the score.

This time it was a 60-45 loss to Marysville-Pilchuck.

Despite a winless league record of 0-16 and an overall mark of 1-19, coach Mike Washington said the team grew and matured this season and always maintained a positive attitude.

“Like I told the kids, especially the seniors, that even though it was a long season, the younger kids learned a lot and learned to never give up,” he said. The district playoff-bound Tomahawks, 12-4 league, 13-6 overall, took a 13-8 lead after the first quarter of play and then put together a 10-0 run midway through the second period to up the margin to 32-18 at halftime.

Turnover problems plagued Oak Harbor in the first half and the Wildcats committed 17 ball-handling miscues.

Oak Harbor hung tough early in the third quarter thanks to Jay

Stout’s outside shooting, but the Tomahawks put on a rush late in the period to hold an 18 point, 48-30, lead heading into the final eight

minutes of play.

Stout finished the game with 11 points for the Wildcats.

The Wildcats tightened things up on defense in the fourth quarter holding Marysville-Pilchuck to just 10 points while answering with 15, but the early deficit was too much to overcome.

“We’ll get back in the weight room and get at it this spring,” Washington said. “We’ll have a good summer and get right after them next year.”

Frosh Mike Washington, Jr. scored a game-high 17 points for Oak Harbor.

The Tomahawks had three players score in double figures led by Nick Forsythe with 14 points. Teammates Ryan Lanphere and Spencer Elwell hit for 13 and 10 points, respectively.

“We have a lot of kids coming back for next season that gained experience on the varsity this year,” coach Washington said. “The future at Oak Harbor looks really, really bright.”