PORT ANGELES — It won’t be so easy to push the Pirates around this season.
That couldn’t be said about the Peninsula College women’s basketball program the past two years as the Pirates were bullied by top NWAACC teams.
This year the Pirates expect to do some pushing of their own.
And that’s thanks to a strong recruiting class from Alaska.
“I’m really excited about the team we have this year,” third-year coach Allison Crumb said.
“I don’t think it will resemble the last two teams we had.”
Crumb’s first two teams struggled to get wins, managing just five victories last year.
Turnovers killed the Pirates a year ago, returning sophomore point guard/shooting guard Megan Smith said.
“We made really bad choices on the court last year,” Smith said. “Turnovers was a problem.”
The Pirates will have a makeover with only two returning sophomores but the freshman-dominated team won’t be backing down from other squads.
“We’re a lot faster and stronger than we were last year,” Smith said.
“We are smarter and we are very talented. We see the court better than we did last year and we make a lot less turnovers.”
An unusual element of this group of players who haven’t played together before is how quickly it is meshing.
“Our bond is stronger this year,” Smith said.
Crumb, a former Port Angeles High School standout basketball player, said she has never seen a team come together as quickly as this Pirates squad.
That’s probably because most of the recruits are from Alaska.
“They grew up playing together or against each other,” Crumb said.
They bonded even before their first official team meeting with Crumb.
“They already knew each other and were practicing together,” Crumb said.
The players were hanging out in the gym, got together and began playing and practicing together.
Freshman recruits Taylor Larson and Karli Brakes — former teammates from Class 4A Juneau-Douglas High School of Juneau, Alaska — both said they have played with or against every Alaska recruit on the team.
And they have played together so long that they are almost connected at the waist.
Taylor, a 5-foot-10 power forward/post, and Brakes, a 5-3 point guard, have been playing together since the fifth grade.
They have an on-court presence of each other that’s uncanny.
“Our relationship on court we figured out a long time ago,” Brakes said. “We know our roles.”
High school graduation wasn’t going to separate them.
“I came here because Karli was coming here,” Taylor said.
Other Alaska recruits include Jasmine Yarde of 4A West Valley of Fairbanks, Tia Mason of 4A South Anchorage, Abigail Jones of 3A Haines, Leisl Brown of 4A Wasilla, Jesse Ellis of 2A Skagway and Raquel Young of Kenai Central.
Yarde led all players at the 4A state tournament with 54 points (18 per game) and 18 steals (six per game), and averaged 15.7 points, 8.9 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 3.4 steals in only a half of a season.
She missed the first half with an injured knee.
Young was named the Kenai Central athlete of the year and made all-tournament honors in three different basketball tourneys during the year.
Ellis helped lead Skagway to two state championships in a row and was named all-state and all-conference all four years in high school.
She made first-team all-state and the state all-tournament squad her senior year.
Brown, who follows in her sisters’ — Jamie and Ayla — footsteps to Peninsula, helped spark Wasilla to the 4A state tournament two straight years but was injured in the first state game of her senior season.
Brakes and Taylor both played and practiced with Jones in Juneau summer camps.
“The girls from Alaska all played in state tournaments,” Crumb said.
“They know what it takes to be competitive and they know how to win. They don’t like to lose.”
There are only three players on the active roster not from Alaska — Smith (Coupeville), sophomore Ashley Manker (Coupeville) and freshman Jonica Durbin of Klahowya High School.
Red-shirt freshman Naomi Castanon is from Umatilla, Ore.
“I was really surprised how well we all connected and get along,” Brakes said.
“It was super easy to connect,” Taylor added.
The Pirates not only will have a united front to throw at opposing teams but they also have all that speed, strength and just plain toughness.
Crumb is impressed with the toughness.
“The weight room has been efficient for us,” she said.
“We are aggressive and pretty intense in attack and we’re not afraid to be hit.”
The Pirates, who aren’t very tall, will not back down from the taller teams.
“That aggressiveness from our kids will be a benefit for us,” Crumb said.
Peninsula finally has a little bit of height with Durbin, who is a 6-2 post.
But height falls off after that. Next tallest on the team are three players who are 5-10 each.
“We still don’t have much height but we will have a better post presence than we had before,” Crumb said.
“We’re still short but we’re physical. I think we will be just fine.”
The Pirates expect to compete with the NWAACC bullies.
“We are faster, stronger and more talented, and we are a lot deeper than we have been,” Crumb said.
And the Pirates will be a lot more fun to watch.
Crumb finally has the talent to implement the style she likes to play: breakaway basketball.
“We are going to be fast-paced, up-and-down the court,” she said.
“We have the people that will allow us to push the whole game.”
This is the year that women’s basketball plans to join the three other elite programs on campus.
Men’s soccer and basketball both are defending NWAACC champions (the soccer team is on the verge of its second title in a row) while women’s soccer is in the Final Four tournament for the first time.
“Our goal is to make the NWAACC tournament,” Smith said.
“I see this team making a name for the women’s program.”
