Waterville and Mt. View are clearly two of the top teams in Class B. Waterville has won 50 games in a row and the Mustangs have more size than anyone in the KVAC B. But understandably, not everyone was at their best early on.

Nerves seemd to be on both teams. Mt. View is a tough place for opposing teams to play, as the sound bounces off the walls and makes 200 people sound like 1,000. Neither team had played in a game so big this season, and it showed early.

"Coming into this game, we knew this was going to be probably our best competitor this season," said Waterville guard/forward Jen Nale. "I think both teams definitely had a lot going on in their heads.

"This is not to detract from Coach Donato, he's one of the greatest, and the team is excellent, and they were playing so hard, but we really didn't get into the swing of things, which is very uncharacteristic of us. We usually come out with a really good start. So we kind of had to regroup. It was a good test for us. We really needed it."

(Coach Donato, of course, is John Donato, the Mt. View coach.)

The teams were a combined 15 for 38 from the free throw line -- that's 39 percent -- and the cloud seemed to be affecting everyone else as well. I saw a few things you rarely see:

1. Mt. View had to start Lauren Smith instead of Dakota McAdam because Smith's name was mistakenly marked as a starter in the scorebook.

2. Late in the first half, the clock operator forgot to start the clock for several seconds on a Mt. View possession. Twice in the third quarter, the clock operator forgot to stop the clock on a whistle.

3. Late in the third quarter, the officials called a foul on Waterville, but never told the people at the scorer's table who committed the foul.

Chalk this all up to early-season jitters, and just one of those nights.