PORT ANGELES — The Peninsula College basketball teams have reloaded and are ready to launch.
The Pirate women, featuring a handful of Olympic Peninsula high school products, open the 2021-22 season at the Wenatchee Tip-off Tournament on Friday, while the Peninsula men will welcome fans back to the Pirate gym with a home game at 6 p.m. Saturday against BC Prep out of Langley, B.C.
Due to the state’s mask mandate for indoor public spaces, fans will be asked to wear masks to Pirate games.
Peninsula, under fourth-year men’s head coach Donald Rollman, will put an exciting, talented and experienced team on the floor this season, with only six true freshmen on their 16-man roster.
Due to the NCAA’s ruling allowing a free year of eligibility due to the pandemic in 2020-21, most sophomores are in their third year of college basketball, and the Pirates have five “three-year” sophs, giving Peninsula arguably the most experienced group they’ve ever had.
The men’s roster also includes former Port Angeles Roughriders point guards Gary Johnson (2020)and Dru Clark (2021).
The men, who went 10-7 in the spring season in 2020-21 and 20-7 in their last full season in 2019-20, have a robust preseason with 13 games, including home games against BC Prep on Saturday, against Northwest Indian College on Dec. 1 and then Lane and Tacoma at the Pirate Classic on Dec. 4-5.
The Pirate women, under 12th-year head coach Ali Crumb, will open on the road at Wenatchee with one of the most talented rosters in recent history, one that is heavy on local talent, including recent All-Peninsula girls basketball MVPs Millie Long and Madison Cooke of Port Angeles, sophomore Cheyenne Wheeler, also of Port Angeles; Sequim’s Hope Glasser, Neah Bay’s Ruth Moss and Quilcene’s Gina Brown, who also played prep basketball for Port Townsend and East Jefferson.
The Pirate women went 9-7 last spring and 18-7 in 2019-20.
They are geared up to take a run at the North Division and will prep for those games by playing most of their non-conference season on the road with tournaments in Wenatchee, Puyallup and Olympia.
Their only home games, prior to league play in January, will come at the Pirate Classic Dec. 3-5.
