BELLEVUE — With Wyatt Dunning and John Vaara having off games and in foul trouble, the Port Angeles boys got seven 3-pointers and 21 points from reserve Michael Soule to fend off Enumclaw 68-52 to win the third-place game in the District 2/3 2A tournament Saturday.
The win guaranteed a top-8 seed at regional and an automatic bid to the state 2A tournament at the Yakima SunDome. The Riders were awarded a No. 7 seed and will play No. 2 seed Lynden at regional. The time and place of that game has not been determined yet. Win or lose, Port Angeles moves on to the state tournament that begins on March 2.
Soule is filling in for Parker Nickerson, who is out for the year after he had surgery to repair a fractured finger.
Xander Maestas also chipped in with 19 points, seven steals and six rebounds.
“I’m so happy for Mike. He had a phenonemal game. He had a great game defensively as well, ” said coach Kasey Ulin. Soule had five 3-pointers in the first half alone.
Dunning, the team’s leading scorer, still had 14 points, a good night for most players. Vaara, saddled with foul trouble and only able to play about 15 minutes, had nine.
“They were double and tripling John all game and daring us to shoot from outside,” Ulin said.
The Roughriders won two out of three at the district tournament, losing only to No. 1-seed White River 57-54 in the semifinals. Ulin said the Riders did a good job of bouncing back from that loss.
“That was a really tough, physical game,” he said.
North Kitsap beat White River for the district championship 49-38.
Port Angeles 68, Enumclaw 52
Enum. 16 14 14 8 — 52
PA 19 15 16 18 — 70
Port Angeles (68) — Soule 21, Maestas 19, Dunning 14, Vaara 9, Wheeler 4, Shamp 4.
Neah Bay No. 14 seed
The Neah Bay boys basketball team was given a No. 14 seed at the 1B regional tournament and will play Naselle. That is a loser-out game, with the winner moving on to the state 1B tournament at Spokane Arena.
