PORT ANGELES — For at least four or five straight possessions in the second quarter, the Franklin Pierce girls basketball team simply couldn’t get the ball into the frontcourt.
The Port Angeles girls, utilizing their usual relentless defense, kept stealing the ball or forcing turnovers. It was symbolic of the Roughriders’ whole season, dominating opponents with their defensive pressure and creating easy, fast-break baskets.
Port Angeles, a No. 1 seed in the District 2/3 tournament, won easily over No. 8 seed Franklin Pierce 73-28. With the win, the Riders qualified for the regional round of the playoffs.
Despite qualifying for regionals, coach Michael Poindexter said this team is still hungry. There’s the district championship and a possibility to automatically qualify for state by being among the top eight seeds at regionals.
“We really want to win the next two games badly,” Poindexter said.
The Riders got a break after the game as the team received news that the Sequim girls won their road playoff game against Enunclaw. With the two Olympic Peninsula rivals moving on to the next round, the district second round game was moved out of the Bellevue area to Port Angeles. That game will be played at 6 p.m. today. The winner of that game goes to the district finals Saturday. The loser is still alive and goes to the third-place/fourth-place game, also set for Saturday.
Sequim (13-1, 18-3, No. 8 in RPI) won the first meeting of the year between the two teams 60-55, while Port Angeles (13-1, 15-4, No. 6 in RPI) won the second 60-36, though Sequim did not have one of its top players, Jelissa Julmist, in that game. The two teams tied for the Olympic 2A League championship at 13-1. In past years, they would have played a tiebreaker to decide the league’s top seed but this year, the top seed was decided by a coin flip (won by Port Angeles.)
Now they get to play that rubber match after all.
“I think it’s great. We’re friends with them,” said the Riders’ Anna Petty. “We’re excited to play them again.”
Franklin Pierce hung around with the Riders early. Port Angeles jumped out to a 16-3 lead, but the Cardinals rallied, going on a 9-6 run to cut the deficit to 22-12 early in the second quarter. That’s when the Riders took over the game for good, using their defense to not even allow the Cardinals to get shots off on a 14-0 run over three-plus minutes to blow the game open at 36-12. After finally allowing a bucket, Port Angeles went on another 10-0 run to end all doubt at 46-14 late in the first half.
Port Angeles ended up forcing 27 Franklin Pierce turnovers. The Riders had just 10.
“Our full-court look was pretty good, then our 1-3-1 was good. We’re flexible that way. Not everyone will be affected by our pressure,” Poindexter said.
Eve Burke, using a variety of scoop shots and inside moves in the key, led the Riders with 25 points. She added 12 rebounds and seven steals. Burke, who is averaging more than 21 points a game this season, finished the game with 1,136 points for her high school career, the most by a Roughrider since Jessica Madison, who graduated in 2011 and went on to a stellar college career at Alaska-Anchorage.
Bailee Larson had a good all-around game, hitting three 3-pointers and scoring 13 points to go with five assists and four steals. Anna Petty had a solid game with nine points, four assists and four steals. Lexie Smith had five rebounds and four assists and Paige Mason had six points and five rebounds. A total of 10 Roughriders scored.
Port Angeles 73, Franklin Pierce 28
FP 10 9 6 3 — 28
PA 20 26 14 13 — 73
Port Angeles (73) — Burke 25, Larson 13, Petty 9, Mason 6, Williams 5, Sprague 4, McGoff 4, Gedelman 3, Felton 2, Smith 2.
