PORT ANGELES — The Kingston Buccaneers were given one objective on defense against the Port Angeles Roughriders: Protect the paint.
With a big assist from Sam Byers and George Hill, the Buccaneers did just that in the fourth quarter of their Olympic League boys basketball showdown with the Riders.
Kingston closed out the game with an 18-2 run — accentuated by three Byers blocks and seven of Hill’s 13 points — to beat Port Angeles 57-41 and seize control of the Olympic League race Friday night.
“They are a good team and you kind of have to pick your poison,” Kingston head coach Blake Conley said.
“We just said we’re going to protect the paint, and if they are going to beat us, they are going to beat us from the outside.”
Kingston’s gameplan paid off as Port Angeles struggled to sink shots most of the game against its 1-2-1-1 zone defense.
With Buccaneers clogging the lane with defenders, the Riders rarely got to the rim and instead launched most of their shots from 15 to 21 feet.
Port Angeles made very few of them, hitting just 15 of 58 field goal attempts on the night, including 2 of 22 from 3-point range.
“We’ve got to knock down shots,” Port Angeles head coach Wes Armstrong said.
“Teams are taking away our gaps, taking away our penetration, and if we can’t hit 15-footers and hit 3s, then we’re going to have a long season.”
The victory gave the Buccaneers (8-0 in league, 9-3 overall) a firm grip on first place in the Olympic League.
It not only provided Kingston with a two-game cushion over second-place Port Angeles (6-2, 8-4) and Sequim (6-2, 8-4), but also a season sweep of the Riders.
“Losing two to Kingston, that puts us in a deep hole,” said Armstrong, whose team played its first game of 2011 after getting a bye Tuesday. “We’ve just got to continue to get better.
“At the end of the season, whether we’re league champs or not, we’ve got to be playing our best basketball in game 20 by the time we hit districts.”
“I felt we took a step backwards [Friday].”
After seeing all of its 37-24 third quarter lead disappear early in the fourth, Kingston held Port Angeles without a field goal during final five minutes of the game.
Hill broke a 39-39 tie with a 3-pointer in the corner with 4:50 remaining and added a layin a minute after that to spark a 12-0 run that proved to be a knockout blow.
By the time Port Angeles’ Keenen Walker sank a pair of free throws with 1:10 left, the Buccaneers were well on their way to earning the win.
“When we got up big in the third quarter, I said to the guys, ‘This is a good team, they are going to make a run.’ And they did,” Conley said.
“They forced us into making some turnovers, but we didn’t let that get to [us] and then we just clamped down on [defense].”
Justin Antioquia hit both of the Riders’ long-range shots on his way to a team-high 10 points.
Hayden McCartney also had 10 points for the Riders, with his breakaway layup with 5:20 to go in the fourth capping a 15-2 Rider run between the third and fourth quarters that tied the game at 39.
That was the last basket the Riders would make the rest of the way.
“We just broke down a little bit as a team,” Antioquia said. “We just kind of made some dumb decisions toward the fourth.
Added the senior, “We’ve just got to bounce back like nothing really happened and put that behind us and still play our game.”
Kingston hit 4 of 6 shots in the final frame (18 of 39 on the game) and 11 of 14 free throws to close it out.
Byers was 4-for-4 from the charity stripe during that time, finishing with a game-high 15 points to go along with nine rebounds and three assists.
Zane Ravenholt added 11 points and four assists for Kingston, which overcame its turnover-filled stretch between the third and fourth quarters to outlast the Riders.
Helping matters for the Buccaneers was the absence of Port Angeles’ Ian Ward, who scored eight points in limited minutes before fouling out in the fourth.
Port Angeles out-rebounded Kingston 32-25 on the game, with Casey Smith hauling in seven offensive rebounds.
“We’ll rebound [from Friday’s loss],” Armstrong said. “We’ll get better. “We’ll learn from this.
“And we’ll be a stronger team because of it.”
One other piece of bad news from Friday night: Port Angeles learned it had to forfeit its season-opening nonleague win against WF West due to eligibility issues.
KINGSTON 57, PORT ANGELES 41
Kingston 10 12 15 20 — 57
Port Angeles 9 10 13 9 — 41
Kingston (57)
Byers 15, Hill 13, Ravenholt 11, Burgess 7, Sundquist 4, Deam 4, George 2, Sander 1.
Port Angeles (41)
Antioquia 10, McCartney 10, Wheeler 8, Ward 8, Smith 3, Walker 2.