PORT ANGELES — Port Angeles couldn’t finish what it had started so well, falling to Fife 54-50 in overtime thanks to a wave of self-inflicted errors in a winner-to-state regionals Class 2A West Central District Tournament game Thursday.
The Roughriders opened up a 20-6 advantage after one quarter, but were uncharacteristically careless with the basketball, allowing the Trojans to string together defensive stops and steadily chip away at that lead and gain momentum throughout the remainder of the contest.
“This was on us,” Port Angeles coach Kasey Ulin said. “We allowed them to hang around in the first half with unnecessary turnovers, they got eight layups in transition. We fouled late in the shot clock, we fouled into the bonus when we didn’t need to and we spotted them 12 points at a time in the game when we were up double digits and let them hang around and make the game much closer.”
Up by as much as eight in the fourth quarter against the Trojans, the Roughriders held a 49-44 advantage with less than 20 seconds to go when Khalil Messiah uncorked a prayer of a 3-point shot that looked long all the way until it banked off the glass and in with 17.9 seconds to play. Port Angeles then turned the ball over underneath its own hoop after inbounding the ball and Fife’s Malachi Afework made a layup to tie the game and send it to overtime.
The Riders had a shot at the win in regulation on a contested corner 3-point shot by Kyle Benedict but it was off target.
With both teams in the double bonus, the extra frame became little more than a free throw contest, one that didn’t go Port Angeles’ way. The Riders managed to hit just 1 of 6 freebies and missed 3s in the final minute that would have given them the lead or tied the game, and were bumped into the consolation bracket.
“A kid shoots a 25-footer and hits a bank shot,” Ulin said. “That’s a tough break. That shot is four feet off and somehow hits the soft spot of the backboard and bounces in. And then we turn it over. We should have never been in that position.”
Port Angeles (17-5) will face rival Sequim (12-9) in a loser-out game Friday night at 7 p.m. at Sequim. The game was originally slated for Graham-Kapowsin High School, but Sequim athletic director Dave Ditlefsen and Port Angeles athletic director Dwayne Johnson worked together to move the game closer to home. A coin toss was held to decide the home court, and despite Port Angeles’ No. 2 overall district seed, the Wolves won the toss and decided to stay and play at home.
“It’s a similar situation to the Burlington-Edison game,” Ulin said referring to Port Angeles’ second game of the season in which the Riders allowed a 12-o run to end the game in a 55-49 loss to the No. 5 team in the WIAA RPI.
“We lost that game but we did grow from that. Now we have to grow from that in a very quick time frame.
“I’ve seen our guys respond to adversity for months and months. This is the part of sports that I love, the opportunity it provides to deal with difficult situations early in your life. This locker room should be very excited and jumping up and down, but it’s a very different locker room. So the question becomes how do we respond?
“They will be the authors of the book, so how do you want those last two or three chapters to go?”
Fife 54, Port Angeles 50, OT
Fife 6 17 11 17 5— 54
PA 20 12 9 8 1— 50
Fife (54) — Afework 21, Steimle 14, Messiah 10, Williams 7, Hernandez 2
Port Angeles (50) — Benedict 22, Kathol 8, Long 7, Clark 6, Edwards 5, Jarnagin 2, Johnson, Cobb, Schmidt.
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Sports reporter/columnist Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
