PORT ANGELES — The Peninsula College women’s basketball team held on to beat Highline 79-75 and earn a win that was harder than it needed to be.
“Way harder. Way harder,” Pirates coach Alison Crumb said after Tuesday’s game. “That’s just learning experience.
“I told our girls, ‘Hey, we get the opportunity to leave with a win and still learn from all the mistakes that we made down the stretch of the game.’
“So, I mean, that, I guess is a positive: We still come away with a win, but we definitely have some corrective things we need to [work on.]”
Those lessons could prove valuable as early as tonight when the fifth-ranked Pirates try to avenge their 77-68 loss Sunday to second-ranked Lane.
Peninsula (6-2) and Lane (8-1) face off at 5 p.m. in the opening round of the Western Region Crossover at Green River Community College in Auburn.
The Pirates were close to putting Highline away a few times in the second half Tuesday, but each time the Thunderbirds managed to stick around.
Peninsula held the largest lead of the game, 70-55, with just over six minutes remaining in the game.
The Pirates were cruising, but then they went into cruise control.
“They just started hitting 3s on us like crazy and we weren’t rebounding like we should,” Peninsula sophomore Madison Pilster, who scored a game-high 21 points, said.
“But we put a hand in their face and started rebounding and took care of it.”
Crumb said a number of things went wrong for Peninsula as Highline ended the game on a 20-9 run.
“We were just allowing people to get open at the 3-point [range], we weren’t managing the clock and the score very well,” she said.
“You know, we were playing hard and we were playing tough, but we were taking early shots in the shot clock, and we were getting turned around on defense and they were getting wide-open 3s, and that’s exactly what we didn’t need.
“We missed free throws as well.”
The Thunderbirds got as close as two points, 76-74, on a 3-pointer by Alycea DeLong with 25 seconds left.
Freshman Imani Smith struggled at the free-throw line, making only 4 of 12, but she hit a big one to give Peninsula a 77-74 lead.
Pilster made 2 of 2 at the line with seven seconds left to give the Pirates some breathing room at 79-74.
But the threat wasn’t over yet. Pilster was called for a foul on a 3-point shot by Brittany Barrington with 1.6 seconds to play.
Crumb didn’t agree with the call, but . . .
“That last foul was just unnecessary,” Crumb said.
“We don’t need it; she can make it, she can miss it — it’s just whatever.
“So, you’ve got to back off of that.”
Fortunately for the Pirates, Barrington only made 1 of 3 attempts. Peninsula rebounded the last miss to end the game.
“It’s early and we’re relying on a lot of freshmen,” Crumb said.
“Point guard’s [Smith] a freshman, we’ve got wings that are freshmen. So at the end of the game, you’ve got the ball in your guards’ hands a lot, so it’s good for our freshmen to get this type of experience.
“And they’re learning. They’re learning the pace, they’re learning the physicality of it, and so it’s good for us to have such a great learning opportunity and still win.”
The Pirates showed bright flashes of potential during stretches of Tuesday’s game.
They finished the first half on a 10-2 run and opened the second half on a 7-2 run to lead 50-38 after Miranda Schmillen’s and-1 with 17:50 remaining.
“I think we just were looking for our shots,” Pilster said of the hot stretch that overlapped the two halves.
“You know, we were moving the ball, we weren’t just chucking up 3s; we were just looking for our shots, passing.”
Rather than put the game away at that point, though, Peninsula went more than five minutes without scoring.
Highline also struggled to score, but managed eight points in that stretch to close to within four points, 50-46, before the Pirates finally ended their drought.
Peninsula played most of the second half with starters Zhara Laster and Gabi Fenumiai in foul trouble, and needed bench players to step up and help turn the tide.
With the score 52-46, Whitney Nemelka knocked the ball away and then dove on it right in front of the Pirates’ bench.
Crumb called a timeout and immediately hugged Nemelka as the rest of the team swarmed the two of them.
“When we’re not scoring and we’re not getting shots, and you get a hustle play like that, it’s a momentum-changer,” Crumb said.
After Nemelka’s steal, Peninsula scored 10 of the next 14 points, capped by Neah Bay graduate Cierra Moss rebounding her own miss and scoring while being fouled. Her free throw made it 62-52.
The Pirates followed that with another nice run that put their lead at 70-55 with six minutes left.
“This is a good group with a lot of potential. We’ve seen bits and pieces of it during the game,” Crumb said.
“If we can manage to get better and better and see more of that throughout the course of the season, we’re going to be a very difficult team to stop.”
Pilster scored 15 of her 21 points in the back-and-forth first half. She made 8 of 14 shots from the field and was a perfect 4 for 4 at the free-throw line.
Schmillen scored 18 and led the Pirates with four steals, while Smith finished with 14 points and three steals.
Moss scored nine points and tied with Laster for the team-high in rebounds with eight.
As a team, Peninsula finished with 14 steals, which helped the Pirates push the pace of the game.
“I was proud of our ability to transition on this team,” Crumb said.
“I think we got a lot of tips on passes, and we transitioned and were pushing the ball really, really well.
“And it saved us. We attacked the basket well.”
Crumb said the Pirates are excited to get another shot at Lane tonight.
“They’re a good team and we battled with them [Sunday],” she said.
“And we’re a good team. We want to play good teams. We want this to be tough.
“These girls, they have not had one day off in the month of December. They have not had one day where they’re not in the gym or in the film room. And that’s so challenging to do.
“I mean, we’ve had some good wins that we don’t have time to sit on, you know, we don’t have time to appreciate or really enjoy.
“We’ve got to move on to the next one, and it’s creating some toughness that we need to go through right now.”
Men play in Olympia
The Peninsula men (3-4) open the Grays Harbor Crossover against Walla Walla (3-4) on Friday at 5 p.m.
The Pirates have been playing shorthanded for most of the season up to this point, but head coach Mitch Freeman said Tuesday that most of the missing players are expected to return in the coming few weeks.
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Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
