PORT ANGELES — The final game of the regular season didn’t go like the Peninsula College men’s basketball team hoped.
But the evening finished just fine.
The Pirates lost a frustrating game to Shoreline 83-69, which put their postseason hopes in the hands of others.
Several minutes after Saturday’s game, while the Peninsula women’s team was cutting down the net to celebrate its region championship, news came that Edmonds lost to Skagit Valley 79-75, which means the Peninsula men will have the North Region’s fourth seed at this weekend’s Northwest Athletic Conference tournament.
Peninsula coach Mitch Freeman was counting his blessings rather than lamenting the loss to Shoreline.
“We feel great. We do. It’s a good feeling,” he said.
“These kids have deserved it, they have played an excellent second half of the season of league play, winning the games that we had to win and competing the way we competed.
“So I’m really proud of them. I just wish we could have sent J.D. [Jal Deng] and Domach [Domach] out on a high note here at Peninsula College.”
Deng and Domach are the Pirates’ lone sophomores, and were playing the final home games of their careers.
Ergo, Peninsula isn’t long on experience when it comes to a must-win game at the college level.
“We have a young basketball team — I’m not going to call them freshmen anymore, because we’re not, but we are young — and we’ve got to make winning a habit, and I think that we kind of just let the pressure go a little too much,” Freeman said.
Shoreline, meanwhile, had nothing to play for, having been eliminated from postseason contention Wednesday, which allowed the Dolphins to play loose.
In fact, they were late arriving to the game, not walking into the Peninsula College gym until after the women’s game ended.
It didn’t take long for Shoreline to get warmed up. About 10 minutes.
Peninsula’s Malik Mayeux followed a miss with a bucket to give the Pirates a 10-9 lead with 10:49 remaining in the first half.
But, thanks to scoring streaks of 7-0, 10-0, 9-0 and 6-0, the Dolphins built a 44-23 lead by halftime.
“In the second 10 minutes of the first half, we weren’t scoring, we weren’t very aggressive at trying to attack the basket when we had opportunities,” Freeman said.
“We were kind of looking for other guys to make a play, and so the drought of not scoring, and then they made some shots — because you’re playing [against] a team that has absolutely nothing to lose, so sometimes that can be challenging.”
It didn’t get much better for the Pirates to start the second half, as Shoreline’s lead hovered between 19 and 24 points until Peninsula freshman guard Ryley Callaghan was fouled on a 3-pointer with 13:04 remaining.
Callaghan, who leads the NWAC in free-throw shooting at 89.7 percent, made all three to decrease the deficit to 55-34.
Peninsula’s defensive pressure finally started getting to the Dolphins, and the offense, which had struggled from the tip, finally caught some breaks and had some makes.
Callaghan scored a layup in traffic, Deng drilled a 3, Callaghan was fouled in the act of shooting, and making, a jumper. He made the free throw as well.
Then came another and-1 by Callaghan, and another foul in the act of shooting a 3 — Callagahan made two of the three free throws — and yet another bucket by Callaghan and another by Deng.
Then Deonte Dixon, the Pirates’ second leading scorer, picked up his fourth foul.
Dixon was supposed to sub out of the game, but an incorrect substitution left him on the floor, and before Freeman could take him out, Dixon hit a 3-pointer that brought Peninsula to within 12 points at 66-54 with 7:07 to play.
“We had a shot there when we cut it to about 12, but we just didn’t have the horses to continue doing that,” Freeman said.
Nine straight points by Shoreline made it 75-54.
During that stretch, Dixon fouled out, which ended what was a frustrating game for the freshman.
The Pirates kept plugging away.
Callaghan was fouled on a 3-point attempt for the third time in the game and made all three free throws.
Alex Ironside made a nice bucket on a follow attempt and Callaghan hit a pair of treys to cut Shoreline’s lead to 80-67.
But by that point, there was less than two minutes left and the game was all but over.
“We never gave up. We continued to fight,” Freeman said.
“We have great kids in this program, and so I was proud of the effort.
“Now, the results were not there, but I was proud of the effort.”
Callaghan finished with a career-high 36 points, which included 4 of 11 from 3-point range and 16 of 17 at the foul line. He also had five rebounds and four assists.
Deng scored 12 points and grabbed a team-high 11 boards.
Mayeux had seven points and seven rebounds for the Pirates.
The Pirates (7-7, 14-12) receive a bit of another break in the opening round of the NWAC tournament.
As the North’s fourth seed, Peninsula will play the South Region champion this Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Toyota Center in Kennewick.
Chemeketa, the team with the best record in the South, was forced to forfeit all games it played before Saturday because it used an ineligible player.
So instead of playing the Storm, who were 21-8 before the forfeits, the Pirates will face the South’s next-best team, Clackamas (19-10).
Peninsula will still enter that first-round game as underdogs, but its defense — only two teams, top-ranked Bellevue and Clark, allow less points per game than the 67.7 the Pirates give up — could make things interesting.
“I think the goal has got to be one game at a time,” Freeman said of the conference tournament. “And I think anything can happen in the game of basketball.
“And the way we can defend consistently, and then you get in an environment like the Toyota Center — a big dome — it can be tough to shoot.
“So we’ve got to be able to defend and we’ve got to be able to create easy baskets.
“But take it one game at a time.”
Shoreline 83, Peninsula 69
Shoreline 44 39— 83
Peninsula 23 46— 69
Individual scoring
Shoreline (83)
Jordt 9, Wisnubroto 5, Armstead 3, Kelley 15, Reyes 16, Loubacane 9, Johnson 14, Foster 9, Vaina 2, Ellingsworth 1, Franks.
Peninsula (69)
Callaghan 36, Mayeux 7, Dixon 8, Hobbs 2, Deng 12, Ironside 2, Cook 2, Domach, Reis, Nibler.
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Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
