LAKEWOOD — The Port Angeles boys basketball team had trouble handling the ball against Clover Park’s pressure, especially in the third quarter, and lost its second-round District 3 2A tournament game 64-43.
That loss set up a third battle against Sequim at Sequim at 8 p.m. today. The Wolves lost a hard-fought battle 77-68 against Bainbridge. That is a loser-out game with the winner moving on the district’s third-place game.
Tonight’s game with Sequim is a similar, but not identical, playoff scenario from last year, when Sequim won a loser-out, winner-to-state game against Port Angeles in the district tournament. This year, the winner of tonight’s game will still have to win another game Saturday against either Franklin Pierce or Bremerton at Bremerton High School to qualify for state.
“I’m excited to play in Sequim. We’ve already had two good games against them,” said Port Angeles coach Kevin Ruble. Sequim and Port Angeles have split two earlier meetings.
The Roughriders (11-10) overall went into Tuesday’s game as underdogs against the district’s No. 2 seed Clover Park (18-4).
The Timberwolves jumped the Riders early, getting up 18-8 early in the second quarter. Port Angeles rallied with Brody Pierce scoring on press break and Hunter Flores got a fortuitous bounce on a 3-pointer to make it 21-15.
That was the closest the Riders got for the rest of the game. The Timberwolves ended the half on a 6-0 run to take a 27-15 lead into the break.
The third quarter was a disaster for the Riders as they couldn’t take care of the ball and made a rash of turnovers that led to easy Clover Park baskets. Clover Park went on a 21-2 run at one point to take a commanding 48-19 lead. That run was the difference in the game as the Timberwolves won by 21 points.
“We came out really flat in the third,” Ruble said. “To me, the third quarter is the most important quarter of the game. It’s really important to hit the ground running and I felt like we didn’t do that.”
Port Angeles didn’t quit, however and rallied, thanks in large part to Keilar Point, who made a pair of 3-pointers and scored eight straight points at the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth. After a 14-2 Riders’ run, they had the score at 50-33 with plenty of time to try and make a game of it. The Timberwolves responded with a 12-4 run of their own to put the game solidly out of reach at 62-37 midway through the fourth quarter.
Flores led the team with 11 points, while Point had eight and Brock Hope and Ashton Gedelman each had six.
Clover Park 64, Port Angeles 43
PA 6 9 15 13 — 43
CP 15 12 23 14 — 64
Port Angeles (43) — Flores 11, Point 8, Hope 6, Gedelman 6, Pierce 4, Parker 2, Davis 2, Brenkman 2, Ruddell 2.
