PORT ANGELES — Skagit Valley head coach Roger Valentine shook his head in disbelief.
One minutes after giving up two straight offensive rebounds in the waning minutes of Wednesday night’s Peninsula College-Skagit Valley men’s basketball showdown, the Pirates snatched another on a their own missed free throw.
“Three in a row?” he yelled in disbelief to his bench.
Against the physical, athletic and active Peninsula College Pirates, believe it.
The Pirates took care of the boards, out-rebounding the Cardinals 50-23, and made enough free throws down the stretch to hold on for a critical 79-73 NWAACC North Division win Wednesday night.
The win vaulted Peninsula (9-2 in North, 14-6 overall) into a tie for first place with Skagit in the North with five games to go in the regular season.
“I think that we’re tough and we bring multiple guys off the bench and we wear other teams down with our depth,” first-year Pirates head coach Lance Von Vogt said.
“I think we gave great effort [tonight]. We had a little bit of a mental lapse in the final four or six minutes until we corrected it at the very end.”
Guard Mitrell Clark dropped in 25 points, including four straight free throws in the final 20 seconds, and dished out four assists to lead the Pirates down the stretch.
Bryce Jacobson added 10 points before going out with a knee injury, while DeShaun Freeman had 10 points and 13 rebounds in a game the Pirates needed to control on their destiny in the North.
“We really focus on effort,” Clark said. “Once we get our effort, everything else takes care of itself.
“[Tonight’s win] means a lot, but we’ve got to continue to get better.”
Peninsula spent the first 30 minutes of the game building a lead, then spent the last 10 hanging on.
The Pirates went ahead within the first four minutes, then immediately went on a 12-2 run to fueled by two Jeremiah Johnson 3-points to surge ahead 18-7.
Peninsula would maintain that lead throughout the first half, going into the break up 36-21.
The Pirates maintained that edge in the first 10 minutes of the second half as well, going up by as many as 19 after back-to-back putbacks from Jerry Johnson capped a 10-3 Pirate run for 56-37 edge.
Peninsula finished with 15 second-chance points to Skagit’s four, making up for a 42.4-percent shooting night compared to Skagit’s 47.2-percent showing.
“When you rebound the basketball it just limits the other team’s opportunities and it also give you more opportunities,” Von Vogt said.
“It’s an obvious thing, but we spend time on it in practice every day.”
Skagit (9-2, 11-9) began chipping away soon after that, as Justin Downer caught fire from beyond the arc and the Cardinals trapping 1-3-1 zone defense disrupted the Pirate offense.
The Mount Si graduate drained all six of his 3-pointers in those final 10 minutes, with his fifth bringing the Peninsula lead down to 72-66 with 2:30 to go.
With the Pirates needing to stem the tide, Freeman and Jacobson rebounded back-to-back 3-point misses from Clark, a sequence that burned 1 minutes, 18 seconds worth of clock.
Skagit’s Travis Church scored another putback with 1:04 remaining to put the score at 72-68.
But Freeman came up with another offensive rebound on the other end after Trevant Musgrow missed the second of two free throws.
With the Cardinals scrambling to defend yet another possession, Jeremiah Johnson knocked down a 12-foot baseline jumper, essentially putting the game away at 75-68 with 26.8 seconds left.
“[Skagit’s 1-3-1 trap]’s not something that they had shown yet, and I don’t think I prepared my guys for it,” Von Vogt said.
“We should be prepared for it two-thirds of the way into the season anyway. We should be able to handle that trap and be strong with the basketball.
“Tonight, we struggled against it until we had a timeout and we talked about how to attack it. Once we did that I think we did a better job of it.
“In the end, we did what we needed to do to win this game.”
PENINSULA 79, SKAGIT VALLEY 73
Skagit Valley 21 52 — 73
Peninsula 36 43 — 79
Individual Scoring
Skagit Valley (73)
Juarez 14, Spencer 2, Downer 20, Goodman 2, Church 6, King 27, Dickens 2.
Peninsula (79)
Freeman 10, Musgrow 5, Jacobson 10, Jeremiah Johnson 8, Clark 25, Williams 6, Waller 7, Jerry Johnson 8.
