PORT TOWNSEND — It’s one thing to lose a do-or-die pigtail playoff game.
It’s quite another to expect to have the opportunity to play a loser-out game but told just hours before that game is slated that your season is over.
“It’s not a very good ending [to the season],” Port Townsend girls basketball coach Randy Maag said.
“It’s probably as painful a message I ever had to deliver to my team.”
The small-school Class 1A Redskins had to finish in the top five, according to rules worked out by Nisqually League and Port Townsend officials, in the mostly 2A Olympic League to secure a loser-out pigtail spot in the 1A Nisqually League playoffs.
Fifth-place finish
Port Townsend finished the regular season at 9-11 overall and 5-11 in the tough Olympic League, tied for fifth place with 2A Klahowya.
The Redskins were expecting to play Vashon Island in the pigtail playoff because the Pirates were in fourth place in Nisqually for most of the season.
Port Townsend had been practicing all last week for that game.
“We had been talking to Vashon for two weeks about the playoff game, and even had a time, 6 p.m., to play the game,” Maag said.
A problem came up when Life Christian, the third-place team most of the year, was upset by Charles Wright in a snow makeup game on Feb. 6.
That put Life Christian in a tie with Vashon for third place in all-1A Nisqually at 6-6 each, which set up a playoff seeding game between the two for the league’s No. 3 and 4 seeds to the Tri-District tourney.
Five games in five days
That meant that Life Christian potentially would play Feb. 6 and 7 in makeup games, on Feb. 8, Wednesday, in a playoff with Vashon, and potentially play last Thursday in the pigtail playoff with Port Townsend, then turn around and play Friday, or in other words, play every day of the week.
Both Maag and Port Townsend athletic director Patrick Kane said they believe that Nisqually officials scrambled to look for a loophole in the playoff agreement between the league and the Redskins to take pressure off its teams from playing so many games in a short span.
“I really don’t know that but it can be surmised that is what happened,” Maag said.
Unanswered appeal
Nisqually League officials weren’t available for comment.
Kane appealed the Nisqually ruling to the state high school organization, WIAA, but state officials wouldn’t make an official ruling, saying it was something the leagues needed to work out, Kane said.
According to Kane and Maag, Nisqually officials refused to accept the Redskins into their playoffs because even though Port Townsend tied Klahowya for fifth, the Eagles beat the Redskins both times the teams played this season, giving Klahowya an edge in the standings.
“What they did was apply rules to their league to our league,” Maag said.
It wouldn’t matter if the Redskins split with the Eagles or even swept the 2A team because both programs are in different state classifications and were not competing for a district seeding spot.
No matter how any one looks at it, the Redskins captured fifth place in a tough 2A league and deserved to advance to the playoffs, Maag said.
“Sports is supposed to be all about the kids,” Maag said. “It’s been a long season, the kids worked really hard and to finish where we did was a great accomplishment.”
But there are no playoff games to show for it.
This is one of the reasons why Port Townsend coaches overwhelmingly support joining the Nisqually League, which features schools the same size as Port Townsend, Maag added.
School administrators nixed the idea of switching leagues a couple of months ago, saying it would cost more for Port Townsend teams to travel in the 1A Nisqually than it does in the Olympic League.
“We’re a moving target [in the Olympic League],” Maag said.
And some could add: A moving target to get into the Nisqually League playoffs, too.
Port Townsend parent Lenora Johnson wrote in an email that she will be submitting an official complaint to the WIAA about the incident.
