PORT ANGELES — Best halftime speech ever?
Whatever it was, the Port Angeles Roughriders transformed into a completely different team between the final buzzer of the first half and the in-bound pass that opened the third quarter.
And the new, or at least improved, Riders rallied back to beat Steilacoom 40-36 in the first round of the District 2/3 girls basketball tournament at Port Angeles High School on Thursday.
The victory put 10th-ranked Port Angeles (19-3) one win away from clinching a regional berth.
The Riders trailed the Sentinels 24-16 at the intermission — it would have been 24-13 if not for Lauren Lunt’s 3-pointer in the waning seconds of the half — but by the end of the third quarter they were ahead 33-26.
Port Angeles coach Michael Poindexter said nothing fancy happened at halftime.
Instead, there were just simple reminders of how to play Port Angeles basketball. The team’s identity might be altered a bit by the absence of experienced seniors Maddie Boe and Emily Johnson due to injuries, but the basic tenets are the same.
“We got back in transition,” Poindexter said, “and we stopped turning the ball over.
“It’s as simple as that.”
The halftime deficit might have seemed larger and more daunting than eight points at the time, but it ended up being fairly quickly overcome.
While Steilacoom was being held to two free throws, Natalie Steinman made one of two free throws, Katyn Flores nailed a corner 3, Lunt hit another 3, and Nizhoni Wheeler made two buckets.
Five minutes into the second half, the Riders were ahead 27-26.
“We just brought the energy back and we just played really well, like we can,” Wheeler said.
Hayley Baxley set up Nizhoni Wheeler for her third straight bucket, and then Cheyenne Wheeler and freshman Kyrsten McGuffey each scored a layup as the lead got up to 33-28.
Lunt hit another trey early in the fourth to make it 36-30, but then Port Angeles went dry for more than five minutes and the Sentinels caught up at 36-36 with 1:31 remaining in the game.
“I thought our shot selection got out of hand late,” Poindexter said.
“I thought we got a little excited because some shots were going down, [but] we weren’t shooting the ball that well.
“We kind of shot ourselves out of our lead.”
After a timeout, Port Angeles worked the ball down the court against the Sentinels’ press, and Nizhoni Wheeler found a cutting Steinman for a layup and a 38-36 lead with 1:15 to play.
The Riders knew that play would be effective coming into the game, and they went to it often.
“During practice this week we worked on our baseline runner just dropping down and then looking for them, because they come up a little,” Wheeler said.
Port Angeles made a couple of defensive stops before the Sentinels were forced to foul Flores, who made both ends of the one-and-one with 18 seconds left to make it 40-36 and essentially seal the victory.
Nizhoni Wheeler led the Riders with 11 points, 11 rebounds, five blocks and four assists.
Lunt scored nine points — all coming on 3-pointers — and Flores, McGuffey and Steinman each had five. Steinman also had four rebounds and four steals.
Baxley only scored one point, but she contributed four rebounds and four assists. Freshman Aeverie Politika pulled down five boards and sophomore Gracie Long had four.
For Steilacoom (8-12), Nanalia Wagoner scored a game-high 13 points and Akira Brown added 10. Those two, though, were held to two points apiece in the second half.
Brown in particular exploited the Riders in transition in the first two quarters by outrunning the defense down the court. She would then catch passes thrown over the top and turn them into easy layups.
That didn’t happen once in the second half.
“Our mantra is, ‘No good team ever gets beat in transition,’” Poindexter said.
“We’ve played one team in five years we couldn’t defend in transition — that was East Valley-Spokane at [the state tournament in] Yakima two years ago.
“So out of all those other games — how many have we played? Over a hundred — nobody should beat us in transition.
“Well, we didn’t get back. Good teams get back. If you can’t get back, you shouldn’t be in the postseason.
“So we got back better.”
The slow start by wasn’t much of a shock. Some growing pains were to be expected as the Riders were trying to figure out how to play without Boe (wrist) and Johnson (knee), two of the team’s three seniors this season (Baxley is the other).
“This team has a lot of learning to do,” Poindexter said. “I mean, we have a lot of knowledge sitting on the bench.
“And the people on the floor are going to have to go into accelerated learning status.”
________
Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
