LONGVIEW — The Peninsula College women’s basketball team rallied and then held on in the closing seconds for a 65-62 road win over Lower Columbia.
“I was really proud of the team and how they played on the road being such a young team. They came together, they were tough, drew several charges and had a lot of loose ball effort,” Pirates coach Alison Crumb said.
“LCC has big posts, we were outsized, and they have good shooters. Overall, this is a team that will probably compete for a championship in the West, so we wanted to see how we would compete against a team that will be strong in their region and the girls took on the challenge.”
After rallying from a 22-10 deficit late in the first half, the Pirates withstood two Red Devils’ shots to tie the game in the final 10 seconds, a layup and a 3-point attempt at the buzzer, to pull out the win and remain unbeaten.
“It was good for our girls,” Crumb said. “We need to experience these types of games, even being up in the situation after being down like that was important. In the timeouts we told them to not shy away in these moments.
Peninsula was balanced offensively with seven players scoring seven or more points.
Reserve Kuutuuq Danner led the Pirates with 13 points on 6 of 12 shooting off the bench.
Ashlynn Sharp added 10 points and five assists and Logan Luke scored eight and dished five assists for the Pirates.
“That’s how we want this year to go,” Crumb said of the balanced attack. “We’ve started three different starting lineups in three games, we don’t really believe we have a set starting five. We have a whole team that can contribute, that can bring a lot to the table and that’s what we want. To have a group go out and attack them as a unit. That’s going to be us all year.”
Port Angeles product Nizhoni Wheeler led Lower Columbia with 16 points, but Peninsula did a solid job at keeping her off the boards, limiting Wheeler to three rebounds, all on the offensive glass.
“She’s a great player,” Crumb said. “She can shoot, rebound and is going to get hers. We did a good job of making it tough on all of their post players.
“Our posts, being outsized, played their tails off.”
Nizhoni’s sister Cheyenne, a 2018 Port Angeles grad, totaled an assist and a rebound in three minutes of court time for the Red Devils (0-4).
Peninsula is off for the next week and will visit Centralia on Friday, Nov. 30.
Peninsula 65, Lower Columbia 62
PC 5 9 30 21— 65
LCC8 14 22 18— 62
Peninsula (65) — Danner 13, Sharp 10, Williams 9, Luke 8, Fitzgerald 8, Vincente 8, Padilla 7, McCaulley.
Lower Columbia (62) — N. Wheeler 16, Packham 11, Lofgren 9, Lorton 9, Mosier 6, Kata 6, Jacobson 5, C. Wheeler.
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Sports reporter/columnist Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
