TACOMA — The Port Angeles and Port Townsend boys basketball teams saw their season’s come to a close one game into the postseason.
The Redskins lost on the road to Seattle Christian 53-46 in a Class 1A Tri-District play-in game.
The Roughriders, meanwhile, fell to Clover Park 62-48 in the opening round of the Class 2A West Central District tournament at Foss High School on Monday.
“It happens . . . and before you want it to, most of the time,” Port Angeles coach Brent Stephens said of the end of the season.
“One of our goals was to make it to districts. It would have been nice to win a game or two, but I’m really happy for them [Port Angeles’ players].”
The Riders battled back and forth with the Warriors in the first and second quarters behind the shooting of senior Hayden Gunderson, who scored the bulk of his 22 points in the opening half.
“Hayden Gunderson carried us in the first half,” Stephens said.
Clover Park made a run right at the end of the second quarter to take a 39-33 lead at half.
The Riders never recovered.
They outscored the Warriors 8-7 in the third, but Clover Park pulled away with a 16-7 fourth quarter.
“We scored 15 points in the second half. You can’t expect to win when you do that,” Stephens said.
“We had an atypical bad shooting night. We missed a lot of 5-footers.
“And we had a lot of turnovers.”
Gunderson was the only Roughrider to score in double figures. Hunter Hathaway contributed eight points, and Lambros Rogers and Brady Konopaski scored five each.
Clover Park (11-11) was led by Phillip Winston’s 26 points.
“We could have done more to stop him,” Stephens said.
“He’s a good basketball player, but we gave him a lot of opportunities.”
Port Angeles finishes the season 12-9, a nine-win improvement over last season.
“I’m really proud of them,” Stephens said. “We’ve had a year’s worth of victories, and not just on the court.
“Players who had issues last year had no issues. We’ve seen grades go up. There are a ton of success stories on this team.”
He credited seniors Gunderson, Konopaski, Derek Schumacher, Austin Polly, Tristan Isett, Steven Lauderback, Nick Fairchild and Kyle Rosander for building the foundation as the program is being redeveloped.
Clover Park 62, Port Angeles 48
Port Angeles 18 15 8 7— 48
Clover Park 18 21 7 16— 63
Individual scoring
Port Angeles (48)
Konopaski 5, Gunderson 22, Hathaway 8, Rogers 5, Burns 3, Schumacher 3.
Clover Park (62)
Winston 26, Hughes 11, O’Bee 10, White 7, Miller 6, Smith 2.
Seattle Christian 53, Port Townsend 46
SEATAC — The Redskins 1A Tri-District tournament hopes were extinguished by a hot-shooting night from the Warriors’ leading scorer Cody Miller.
Miller, who averaged 17 points on the season, exploded for 30, including scoring 15 of his team’s 18 points in the decisive fourth quarter Monday night.
“It wasn’t like we weren’t playing tough defense on him,” Port Townsend coach Tom Webster said.
“Every time in the game where we’d get a lead, he’d hit a three and take it back.”
Port Townsend trailed 24-23 at halftime and 35-34 entering the final period before Miller’s fourth-quarter frenzy.
“It’s very disappointing for the kids and the coaches and everybody who roots for this team,” Webster said.
“We had coached them to go further [in the playoffs] this year — we played some tough games in the Olympic League, we went out to play Neah Bay for a game and we put a lot of energy into scouting our opponents, and this kid [Miller] just turned our lights out.”
Port Townsend didn’t play poorly on offense or defense according to Webb, but carried over a bad habit from the regular season into the playoff game, poor free-throw shooting.
The Redskins hit 18 of 41 of their field-goal attempts, but converted on just 4 of 12 free-throw attempts.
“For whatever reason, this year has been a struggle from the line,” Webb said.
Senior Paul Spaltenstein led Port Townsend (6-15) with 14 points and classmate Cody Russell added 13 points, five assists and six steals.
Other departing seniors are Skyler Coppenrath who scored four points and had eight rebounds, Jacob King who had four points and seven rebounds, and Daniel Charlton and James Delagarza.
“We had some really good wins as a group, made lots of great memories together and it was really rewarding to coach them,” Webb said.
“I’ve had some really good kids at Port Townsend and they are right up there with the best of them.”
Seattle Christian 53, Port Townsend 46
Port Townsend 16 7 11 12— 46
Seattle Christian 11 13 11 18— 53
Individual scoring
Port Townsend (46)
Spaltenstein 14, Russell 13, Adkins 8, Coppenrath 4, King 4, Dwyer 2, Charlton 1.
Seattle Christian (53)
Miller 30, Taggert 11, Sutherland 6, Gifford 3, Hay 2, Gunhus 1.
