PORT ANGELES — For the first time since 2015, both the Peninsula College men’s and women’s basketball teams will be cutting down the net as North Region champions tonight.
The men at 12-1 in the North (25-2 overall) locked up the North title over a week ago. The women at 11-2 (19-4 overall) have earned at least a share of the North title with Shoreline one game behind at 10-3 after the Dolphins won a makeup game Monday night over Bellevue. If the women win, they will win the North Region outright.
It is also the final home game for both teams as they prepare for the Northwest Athletic Conference tournament that will begin March 8 at Columbia Basin College in Pasco. The women play Everett at 5 p.m. and the men are set to play Everett at 7 p.m.
Women’s coach Alison Crumb said her players have a little extra motivation tonight because of the Shoreline victory Monday. And because it’s sophomore night and the last home game for some women such as Tati Kamae, Millie Long, Itaua Tuisaula, Gina Brown, Adam Kaganak and Ruth Moss. Most of these players have been part of the Pirates program for two or even three years with the COVID-19 pandemic and were a big part of last year’s squad that made it to the NWAC championship game.
“They want that outright title. They’ve earned it. They’ve put in a lot of hard work,” Crumb said.
Everett has struggled this season at 0-13 in the North, but Crumb said that every team in the North is tough and the Pirates cannot take tonight’s game for granted.
The men are coming off an emotional and bittersweet victory Saturday. They blew a 17-point lead against Edmonds, then rallied late to win 75-50. This was after they lost one of their best players for the season, Malik Jackson, to a serious dislocated ankle injury early in the game.
“It was a gruesome injury. It was a tough halftime. We’re a close group,” said men’s coach Donald Rollman, who called it one of the most emotional games he’s ever been a part of. “Malik has been our best player for a month. It was a significant emotional blow.”
Jackson was a big offensive performer for the Pirates, averaging 12.6 points and 7.1 rebounds a game this season. Over his seven North Region games prior to the Edmonds contest, he was averaging 17.7 points a game.
Jackson’s injury comes on top of the loss of Aiden Olmstead. Olmstead, a defensive and rebounding specialist, is out for the year with a high ankle sprain. He was giving the Pirates 6.5 boards a game.
“That’s 17 points and 14 rebounds a game we lost,” Rollman said. “We have to have a next-man-up mentality.”
While the men don’t need to win to improve their playoff seeding, tonight’s game is still important to go into postseason with momentum. Unlike the women’s team, Everett has a strong men’s team that must win to make the postseason, so the Trojans will be highly motivated tonight.
Crumb said it was a big accomplishment to win the region. Six out of the eight teams in the North have overall winning records, including a couple of teams that probably won’t qualify for the NWAC tournament.
The women are riding an 11-game winning streak, which came after losing the first two North games of the season. The women, who were ranked No. 1 in the preseason, also started off the preconference season with two straight losses, followed by a long winning streak.
“I don’t feel you need to go through the season undefeated. Both times [in those losing streaks], it allowed us to reflect upon ourselves.”
The net-cutting ceremony will happen after the men’s game.
The NWAC tournament seedings will be made sometime Sunday with both the men and women looking for No. 1 seeds.
This is the third time ever that the men and women have shared North titles. It also happened in 2005, when Crumb played for the Pirates.
