EDMONDS — Coming off its first loss of the year to a winless team and missing top scorer Roosevelt Williams Jr., the Peninsula College men’s basketball team bounced back with a pair of wins at the Triton Classic at Edmonds College this weekend.
The Pirates buried Linn-Benton College (out of Corvallis, Ore.) 81-61 on Sunday after holding on for dear life to beat South Puget Sound 68-65 on Saturday.
In the win over Linn-Benton, Peninsula got five 3-pointers and 22 points from Mikey Medlock Jr. Malik Jackson had a great tournament, scoring 15, while Ese Onakpoma had 11 and Jason Ervin had 10 points. Jase McCullough had seven points and seven rebounds filling in for Williams, while Aiden Olmstead had 12 rebounds.
Williams has been out with a bone bruise.
“Jase is so tough and a winner. To have a guy like Jase is a real luxury,” said coach Donald Rollman.
Linn-Benton came in to Sunday’s game with a 5-1 record.
Peninsula 81, Linn-Benton 61
PC 40 41 — 81
L-B 26 35 — 61
Peninsula (81) — Medlock 22, Jackson 15, Onakpoma 11, Ervin 10, D’Amato 8, McCullough 7, Olmstead 4, Johnson 2, Tinsley 2.
Linn-Benton (61) — Zimmerman 24, Foster 12, Parker 6, Myers 5, Sanchez 5, Mills 4, Bos 3, Pak 2.
Peninsula 68, S. Puget Sound 65
Medlock had an off game against South Puget Sound, scoring only two points, but the Pirates got a huge game from Jackson and rallied to get past the Clippers.
The Clippers had a 40-32 lead entering the half and still held a 50-42 lead six minutes into the second half when Jackson scored nine straight points to help get the Pirates back into the game. Jackson hit three 3-pointers in the contest and finished with 27 points, averaging 21.0 for the tournament.
One of the big shots for the Pirates came with 2:45 left in in the contest when Max D’Amato hit a 3-pointer to give Peninsula 65-62 lead. The Clippers got off three shots from 3-point range over the final 2:30 of the game, but missed all three as Peninsula held on for the tight win.
D’Amato finished with 14 points and D’Ante Dean had 10.
Peninsula (9-1) next plays at Lane (4-5) on Friday and Centralia on Saturday. Centralia, which was 0-6 at one point, is the only team to beat the Pirates so far this season.
“Guys are thinking [revenge],” Rollman said. “But you don’t want to overthink that. The Centralia game gave us focus. You want to use that game the right way.”
Peninsula 68, S. Puget Sound 65
SPS 40 25 — 65
PC 32 36 — 68
Peninsula (68) — Jackson 27, D’Amato 14, Dean 10, Ervin 6, Onakpoma 4, Johnson 3, Medlock 2, Olmstead 2.
S. Puget Sound (65) — Cybak 17, Guillory 16, Wakefield 11, Montes 10, Simmons 5, Green 4, Hicks 2.
