YEAR IN REVIEW: 2025 a year of change and success for area teams

One of the themes for sports on the Olympic Peninsula in 2025 is “change.”

There were lots of changes and new accomplishments in the local sports scene last year.

One of the biggest changes was the new scoreboard/video board at Civic Field, installed in the spring with a lot of assistance from the Port Angeles Lefties. The scoreboard lit up many nights at Civic Field for the Lefties, the Wilder Baseball Club and the Roughrider baseball and football games and was a huge improvement over the old scoreboard.

Also in the spring, the Sequim boys basketball team, led by the dynamic duo of Jericho Julmist and Solomon Sheppard, made history with one of its best seasons in at least a decade. The Wolves tied with state champion Bremerton as Olympic League champions with identical 12-2 records. The highlight of the season was a 66-61 victory over the Knights in the league finale on Feb. 11, as the Wolves came back from a six-point deficit in the final 3 minutes to pull that game out.

Meanwhile, Port Angeles struggled a bit, losing several games in the final couple of minutes but playing nearly every opponent tough. At the district playoffs, the Roughriders rallied, winning two games and putting themselves in position to qualify for state. It came down to a battle against Sequim in a loser-out, winner-to-state game. Again, as they had done all season, the Wolves were huge in the fourth quarter, blowing open a tight game in the final minutes to make their first trip to state in more than a decade.

At the 1B level, the Neah Bay girls cruised through their season with a dazzling 24-1 record, winning their third state championship with a 46-36 win over Garfield-Palouse. There’s no reason not to believe that the Red Devils could win their fourth straight state championship this season as their only two losses this year were to 4A Mercer Island and Adna, a 2B team that played in the state title game in 2025.

Baseball, softball shine

The spring and summer saw an unprecedented level of success on the Olympic Peninsula in baseball and softball.

In baseball, the Port Angeles Roughriders got off to a 4-10 start and it appeared they were going to miss the postseason. Port Angeles then won eight straight, including two postseason games, to qualify for the state 2A tournament. Once the Riders made it to state, they upset Tumwater 6-4 in extra innings behind 3⅔ innings of outstanding relief pitching by Alex Angevine to win their first game at state since 2001.

However, the biggest success was by the Port Angeles girls softball team, behind their star pitcher Heidi Leitz. The Riders went 22-3-1, winning the Olympic League and winning the District 3 postseason tournament. At the state playoffs, they got a one-hitter from Leitz to beat Cedarcrest 10-1, a no-hitter from Leitz to beat Woodland and then an incredible 19-strikeout perfect game to beat Mark Morris in the state semifinals.

The Riders lost that championship game 2-1 to a powerful Aberdeen team. Aberdeen pitcher Lilly Camp had 342 strikeouts. Leitz finished with 194 strikeouts in 110 innings and now plays softball for Saint Martin’s University.

The success continued into the summer as the Wilder Senior Baseball Club, split between Port Angeles and Sequim players (and including Forks’ Landen Olson) went 37-11-1 and won the Senior Babe Ruth regional championship, qualifying for the Babe Ruth World Series in Florida, where Wilder won four games and represented the Olympic Peninsula well on the national stage. Meanwhile, the North Olympic 13U team won the Pacific Northwest championship and qualified for the World Series in upstate New York.

Fall sports

The highlight of fall sports was the girls soccer action on the Olympic Peninsula. The Port Angeles girls had one of their best seasons in years, going 11-3 in league and 16-5 overall with 12 shutout victories, allowing just 12 goals all season. The 16 wins and 12 shutouts were both school records. The Riders allowed just two goals in five postseason games, qualifying for the state 2A tournament. At state, Port Angeles’ Kennedy Rognlien made an amazing 16 saves in a 1-0 loss to Hockinson.

Sequim and Port Angeles combined to place 10 players on all-Olympic League teams, including five on the first team. Leading the way was Rognlien, who was named co-defensive MVP of the league.

In college soccer, both the Peninsula College men and women came in to the 2025 season as defending NWAC champions and they played like the defending champions through the regular season. Both teams won the North Region championship with the women especially impressive, outscoring their opponents 79-2 while going 12-0-1.

However, the difference between winning and losing can be razor-thin in soccer and neither team made it to their championship games, with the men losing in the quarterfinals and the women in the semifinals. It was the first time since 2022 that neither team was in the NWAC title game.

Also in the fall, Port Angeles’ Millie Long announced she was attending Fresno State to play her final year of college basketball. Long, a state track champion and soccer and basketball league MVP at Port Angeles High School, went on to become an NWAC champion and NWAC player of the year in soccer for Peninsula College and was an all-North Region performer for the women’s basketball.

Long moved on to play soccer and basketball at Cal Poly, Humboldt, then became an all-conference basketball player for Alaska-Anchorage.

In her final year of eligibility, she moved up to Division 1A basketball. She has thrived at Fresno State, averaging 12. 5 points, 2.7 steals and 3.7 assists a game.

Big changes

There were big changes for Port Angeles sports. First, longtime high school athletic director Dwayne Johnson left during the summer to become the athletic director in Neah Bay. Then, longtime head boys basketball coach Kasey Ulin resigned. Ulin had a 158-101 record in 11 years in Port Angeles, with three Olympic League titles and first- or second-place league finishes in six straight years. He also coached his team to a sixth-place finish at the state 2A tournament in 2022, the Riders’ best showing at state since the 1990s.

Kevin Ruble took over the program and has the Riders off to a 5-5 start, which includes a 3-2 start in league.

The other big change was the addition of girls flag football in both Port Angeles and Sequim. It was the first sports added by the WIAA in a quarter century. Both schools have rosters full of girls trying out this new sport, which is supported by the NFL and the Seattle Seahawks.