KENNEWICK — The Peninsula College men’s and women’s basketball teams both lost first-round NWAACC Tournament games at the Toyota Center on Saturday.
The Pirates women’s team lost to Centralia 59-49 while the men fell 73-60 to Tacoma. Both teams play consolidation games today (Sunday).
From the NWAACC play-by-play reports:
Pirates women:
Behind 16 points, six boards and three assists from Italia Mengarelli, Centralia did just enough to pull away from Peninsula in the second half and win by double digits, 59-49, to advance past the Pirates and into the second round at the NWAACC Championships.
Evenly matched in almost every category, it was points off the bench that did it for Centralia, which outscored Peninsula 24-9 off the bench.
Centralia also took much better care of the ball, giving up the rock only 14 times for nine Peninsula points, compared to 24 Pirate miscues for 21 Centralia points.
At first, it seemed as though Centralia, the top seed from the Western Region, would get bounced from the tournament in the first round for two seasons in a row.
Peninsula had the game under control with a healthy lead midway through the first half, but Centralia wasn’t done. They put together a run to cut it back, and take the lead by halftime by one at 34-33.
The second half, as with just about every other game in the tournament so far, was completely different.
Peninsula shot just 19% in the second period and were outscored 25-16.
The poor shooting percentage, combined with the turnovers made Centralia too much for Peninsula, who drops into the consolation bracket to take on Yakima Valley on Sunday morning at 10 p.m.
Centralia will play second ranked Lane, the No. 2 seed from the Southern Region, on Sunday at 2 p.m.
Pirates men
A match up that pitted two of the last NWAACC Champions, Tacoma dominated the backboards, pulling down 18 offensive rebounds and scoring 19 second chance points to take down Peninsula and move on to the second round.
The two squads traded baskets for the first seven minutes, with six lead changes in the first half alone before Tacoma went on a 10-2 run to build a double digit lead with just under seven minutes remaining in the first period.
That’s when Djuan Smith and Xavier Bazille combined for nine points in two minutes to cut the deficit to just two points.
Tacoma went on a run of their own, and had regained a six point lead by halftime.
As the second half got underway, Peninsula turned on their afterburners and came charging back into contention, climbing to within one point, and eventually taking the lead on a three pointer from Smith at the 14:52 mark.
On the next possession, Smith was whistled for a foul and a technical on the defensive end, and sat down with four penalties and it seemed Peninsula had lost its momentum.
Tacoma stayed Peninsula’s streak and built one of their own. The Titans went up five with 9:32 left, and couldn’t be caught from there.
Julian Vaughn led four Tacoma players in double figures with 16 points and seven rebounds, and Dominique Campbell netted just four points, but had 12 boards and four blocks in the win for Tacoma, who will play Chemeketa Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m.
Peninsula will play Walla Walla in the consolation bracket on Sunday at 10 a.m.
