SEQUIM — Welcome to the machine.
The Port Angeles girls basketball team continued its march to another Olympic League championship with a 73-25 dismantling of rival Sequim on Friday night.
Roughrider guard Jessica Madison nearly outscored the Wolves by herself, dropping in 22 points to go along with six assists and 11 rebounds.
She netted half of her points (11) during a 25-8 Roughriders’ 25-8 first quarter, which, although it put the game away early, didn’t satisfy a Port Angeles team (5-0 in league, 5-1 overall) with high expectations.
“It did not feel like [we were up 25-8] at all,” Madison said. “We came into the game with a lack of focus.
“We kind of came out slow. You could kind of tell. That’s not how we played our last four games.”
It would be hard to expect much more.
After all, the Riders sank 11 of 24 shots from the field during their first quarter blitzkrieg, dishing out seven assists to just two turnovers.
Sequim, on the other hand, turned the ball over 11 times, with nary an assist to speak of against Port Angeles’ aggressive zone defense.
45 turnovers
The Riders harassed the Wolves into 45 turnovers on the night, frustrating them in both the full court and half court.
“Overall, I thought the kids did a good job [on defense],” said Port Angeles coach Mike Knowles, whose team is going for its third league title in three years.
“We’ve got a lot of arm length.
“Jessica has long arms. We’ve got Kiah [Jones] a the point, she’s got long arms. Alison [Knowles] does a good job of reading things. Skylar [Jones] holds the middle down. Taylyn [Jeffers] just runs hard, so does Elise [Reid], so we have the kids to do those things.”
Skylar Jones added 12 points and 10 rebounds for the Riders, who had nine players get some ink in the scorer’s book.
That turned out to be more than enough to hand the Sequim girls their 28th straight loss.
Rylleigh Zbaraschuk scored 11 points as the lone Wolf in double figures. Freshman Haleigh Harrison had eight rebounds and four points.
“We’re a young team, and a lot of the mistakes we made were young mistakes,” Sequim coach Stephanie Lewis said. “We dribbled into the traps.
“But at the same time, [the Riders] were really aggressive with the pressure. We kind of got a little flustered with that.”
Port Angeles 73, Sequim 25
Port Angeles 25 11 21 16 — 73
Sequim 8 6 9 2 — 25
Individual Scoring
Port Angeles (73)
K. Jones 7, Knowles 9, Walker 6, Reid 4, S. Jones 12, Madison 22, Rodocker 3, Jeffers 8, Cox 2.
Sequim (25)
Hopson 4, Wiker 6, Harrison 4, Zbaraschuk 11.
