What do you do when you host a dance but can’t find a date for yourself?

That’s a little how the Mountlake Terrace girls basketball team felt on Friday night as the squad was left without an opponent during its own Mountlake Terrace Holiday Tournament.

The Hawks were to have closed out the first day of the event with a game at 7 p.m., but school officials were unable to line-up a replacement opponent after a slew of changes had to be made to the tournament schedule.

Mountlake Terrace head coach Zach Wilde said he was OK with leading the squad through a two-hour practice in place of a game Friday night. “We need the practice,” he said.

Eight other prep teams matched up in games beginning at noon at the Mountlake Terrace High School on Friday, but the main gymnasium was only occupied with the Lady Hawks running drills during the hour that they would have been playing in a game themselves.

The tournament schedule went through numerous drafts leading up to the event due to a couple schools dropping out. Finding enough replacement teams to fill vacant slots in the schedule proved problematic due to the limit of 20 games a team can play during a season.

“Most teams find all 20 of their games during the off-season,” Wilde said. Mountlake Terrace officials had to find teams to fill the tournaments vacant spots after the 2014-15 season had already started.

“We figured out pretty quick that we weren’t going to find a team for our game,” Wilde said.

While the Lady Hawks were without a dance partner on Friday night, an opponent was found for Mountlake Terrace to play on Saturday: the Kingston Buccaneers. The Mountlake Terrace – Kingston matchup will kickoff Saturday’s slate of games beginning at 10:30 a.m. Five more girls prep games will follow throughout the day.

Admission on Saturday is $5 per person for the entire day of five games; additional JV games will be taking place concurrently in the MTHS auxiliary gym. The Sound Live Sports Network will stream live the MTHS – Kingston game and the Edmonds-Woodway – Redmond tilt that follows at approximately noon.

– By Doug Petrowski

MTHS Girls Basketball Holiday Tournament results, Friday, Dec. 26

Monroe 48, Garfield 40
Inglemoor 56, Stanwood 31
Lynden 54, Redmond 31
Renton 56, Marysville-Getchell 47
Edmonds-Woodway 86, Lakewood 32

MTHS Girls Basketball Holiday Tournament schedule, Saturday, Dec. 27

10:30 a.m. –     Kingston vs. Mountlake Terrace
Noon –             Redmond vs. Edmonds-Woodway
1:45 p.m. –       Renton vs. Lakewood
3:30 p.m. –       Inglemoor vs. Monroe
5:15 p.m. –       Garfield vs. Marysville-Getchell
7 p.m. –            Stanwood vs. Lynden