PORT ANGELES — Progress for both the Port Angeles and Port Townsend girls basketball teams will be measured incrementally this season.
Each team showed flashes of promise followed by sloppy stretches in the Roughriders’ 50-20 victory Wednesday night.
Port Angeles graduated seven seniors and returns three players, junior guards Maddie Boe and Hayley Baxley and sophomore post Nizhoni Wheeler, who saw meaningful minutes on last year’s state-qualifying squad.
“Our only goal is to get better moment by moment and not caring as much about results,” Port Angeles coach Mike Poindexter said.
“We won by 30? So what? Who cares? What matters is we got better in the second half. “
The Redhawks return just one player, junior Cassie Olin, with a solid amount of varsity experience, and have a new head coach, former University of Montana standout Jeanne King.
King understands her underclassmen-dominated team is going to take some lumps this year but was heartened with moments of heady play.
“I’m really impressed with my girls,” King said.
“We had a fantastic second quarter and that’s what we’re focusing on right now; we’ll take that with us and leave the rest.”
Boe and Baxley played the passing lanes well at the top of the Riders’ 2-3 zone defense to start the contest.
Baxley picked up three steals in the game’s first three minutes and went on a 7-0 scoring burst on two layups and banked 3-point basket, followed by a Boe layup to go ahead 11-0 with 4:10 in the first quarter.
“We had huge, huge jitters,” King said.
“We were telegraphing our passes and obviously they knew we were going to the wings and we were not meeting the passes.”
But the Redhawks calmed down offensively and pulled within 16-8 after one quarter.
The Riders’ offense, however, stagnated in the second quarter, mustering just one second-quarter bucket as Port Townsend pushed within five, 18-13, at halftime.
“It’s hard to get a team that’s never had a fast break before to fast break, but we focused on passing from the backcourt up to the frontcourt and that was effective,” King said.
“Once we started doing that, we started getting some looks and then just not telegraphing [passes] and not picking up our dribble past halfcourt helped us.”
Poindexter wasn’t pleased with the Riders’ offensive execution in the first two quarters.
“We had really, really poor ball movement offensively in the first half,” Poindexter said.
“Our stat girl said we had shot 12 3s and made one, and that was a bank shot.
“I lit into them a little bit about getting the ball down low to our 6-foot-1 post [Wheeler], who only had one basket in the first half.”
Port Angeles went to Wheeler on its first possession of the second half and the Riders went on a 10-0 run to put the game out of reach at 28-13 with 3:20 left in the third.
The Redhawks went to a full-court press in the fourth quarter and allowed Port Angeles to streak down court for multiple layups as the Riders pulled further away.
Wheeler had six of her 10 points in the fourth, including a 3-pointer, and freshman Natalie Steinman came off the bench to score six fourth-quarter points.
Boe led the Riders in scoring with 12.
Freshmen Kaitlyn Meek and Jordyn King had five points apiece to lead the Redhawks.
Poindexter was reflective after the game.
“Offensively, well, we are just in new roles,” he said.
“We know we are going to be shaky. It’s a matter of how we let that get to us.”
Limiting a team to 20 points, even a young squad like Port Townsend, impressed the coach.
“We were pretty pleased defensively,” Poindexter said.
“For a first game, we are learning a different model of zone defense for us. This was all new to those kids tonight.”
What was most encouraging to Poindexter was the leadership shown by his captains, Boe and Wheeler.
“One of the things I appreciated about Maddie Boe tonight was her laughter,” Poindexter said.
“She airballs a free throw — she laughs— but she’s tough, not goofy about it; and keeping it light and keeping that kind of perspective is what we need, and that was awesome.”
Wheeler, a young player herself, adjusted her game to help out her teammates.
“Nizhoni played with some post players without much experience, and there’s one place they feel comfortable, so Nizhoni moved out of her comfort zone tonight to make other kids feel better and for other kids to be more successful,” Poindexter said.
“And that’s leadership.”
Port Townsend hosts Olympic at 7 p.m. tonight, and Port Angeles hosts Fife and first-year head coach Matt Sinnes at 6 p.m. Saturday.
Sinnes, a 2003 Port Angeles graduate, is the son of longtime Riders boys coach Lee Sinnes.
Port Angeles 50, Port Townsend 20
Port Townsend 8 5 5 2— 20
Port Angeles 16 2 12 20— 50
Individual scoring
Port Townsend (20)
Meek 5, King 5, Carson 4, Snyder 4, Olin 2.
Port Angeles (50)
Boe 12, Wheeler 10, Baxley 9, Steinman 6, Flores 4, Johnson 4, Lunt 3, Buchanan 2.
