SEQUIM — How did that happen?
Coach Tony McCaulley struggled to pin down how the Neah Bay girls were able pull off a 55-35 win over Sequim in their season opener.
Even if the result wasn’t surprising, the margin of victory was — a 20-point win by a Class 1B team playing its first game against a 2A team playing its third.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. It looks like we’re . . . I don’t know,” McCaulley said following Wednesday’s game.
“We played well. I was impressed with the girls tonight.”
It took the Red Devils nearly five minutes to score their first point of the game and season. That first basket, a layup by Tristin Johnson with 3:10 left in the opening quarter, cut the deficit to 3-2 because the Wolves weren’t doing much better.
Jordan Miller scored less than a minute into the contest and Ella Christiansen added a free throw that made it 3-0 with 6:04 to play, but then Sequim went four minutes without a point.
The teams swapped the lead a few times the remainder of the first quarter, including three times in the final minute as they traded 3-pointers.
Gina McCaulley’s 3 gave the lead back to Neah Bay a 7-5, but Sequim’s McKenzie Bentz took it back with a trey with 36 seconds left that made it 8-7.
Then, with eight seconds left, Johnson received the ball near a few feet beyond half-court.
As the Wolves’ defense backed off Johnson in anticipation of her driving the ball closer to the hoop, she casually dribbled forward and launched a long 3 that swished to give Neah Bay a 10-7 lead.
“She’ll do that. She’ll do that. She does it in practice all the time,” Tony McCaulley said.
“And it’s a shot from there, she’s not just throwing it up.”
Neah Bay never trailed again.
Sequim never really got going.
“We just didn’t come out ready to play the first half and it was hard to catch up,” Wolves coach Justine Wagner said.
Sequim did finish the first half strong, however.
The Red Devils opened up a 17-10 lead with 2:32 remaining in the half.
The Wolves responded with their best stretch of the game, scoring six consecutive points, capped by two free throws by Jordan McMinn that made it 17-16 after Johnson was called for an intentional foul.
After Jessica Greene hit a 3 for Neah Bay, Christiansen followed a miss by Bentz in the final seconds to make it 20-18 at halftime.
The Red Devils, though, pulled away in the third quarter with runs of 6-0, 5-0 and 6-0 that grew their lead to 39-25 going into the fourth.
They added another 7-0 run to start the fourth that gave them their largest advantage of the game, 46-25.
From the start of the second half through the first 3 minutes, 30 seconds of the fourth quarter, Neah Bay outscored Sequim 26-7.
The Red Devils mixed in a full-court press with a 2-3 zone in the second half to fluster the Wolves.
“We flashed our press on and off, and it worked good when we did it,” McCaulley said.
“Our zone played pretty well. We had to [play zone] because they were bigger than us.”
Sequim made 11 of 49 shots from the field, while Neah Bay made 19 of 45.
“We just made more shots and I thought we out-hustled them, you know, when it comes right down to it,” McCaulley said.
“Especially our guard play, our guard play was better than theirs, I thought; we handled the ball a little better.”
Johnson led the Red Devils with 15 points. Gina McCaulley added 11, Jessica Greene had seven and Vonte Aguirre and Holly Greene each scored six points.
Miller was Sequim’s top scorer with eight points, while Christiansen finished with seven and Adrienne Haggerty had six.
The Wolves (1-2) return to action Monday at home against Port Townsend (0-4).
Neah Bay, which opens the season with five straight road games, plays at Taholah tonight.
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Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
