PORT ANGELES — There was so much on the line, but there was the Peninsula College women’s basketball team, trailing Bellevue by 20 points not even halfway through the second quarter.

“We just didn’t want to go down like that, you know?” Peninsula coach Alison Crumb said.

And the Pirates didn’t. They rallied back, little by little, to beat the Bulldogs 62-60 on Saturday.

The victory breaks a first-place tie between the two teams in the Northwest Athletic Conference North Region, and it gives Peninsula (11-1, 20-5) a one-game lead over Bellevue (10-2, 20-5) and Skagit Valley (10-2, 20-8) with two games left in the regular season.

The Pirates got off to a clanking start, even good shots were bouncing out, and Bellevue built up a 25-10 advantage by the end of the first quarter.

“Shots weren’t going in, and we were panicked,” Crumb said.

“I mean, we looked a little bit frazzled and uncomfortable, and kind of fumbling, dribbling weird and turning the ball over and rushing shots.”

That lead was up to 34-14 with 6 minutes, 18 seconds remaining in the first half.

That’s when the comeback started, albeit slowly.

The Bulldogs scored only three more points in the quarter. The Pirates scored only nine in that six-plus-minute stretch, but that was enough to decrease the deficit to 37-23.

“We were really supportive of each other,” sophomore point guard Imani Smith said.

“When they ran away with that lead, we continued to encourage each other and didn’t get down, tried not to hang our heads, especially coming into halftime.

“And we just fed off of stuff. Like, when we’d make a shot, we’d constantly tell each other, ‘Feed off that, use it, use it.’ If we get a foul called, like, ‘Shake it off, shake it off, we got the next one.’”

“We just continued to lift each other up.”

The coach provided further inspiration during the intermission.

“I think it was Crumb’s halftime talk,” freshman post Jenise McKnight said. “She told us to get our heads in the game, it was a mental game as well as a physical game, so we just got it together,” McKnight said.

“We had to toss it, we had to toss the first half.”

The Pirates came out of halftime noticeably more determined.

“There was one possession that I think was really telling of the game,” Crumb said.

“It was early in the second half when we got six or seven offensive rebounds and still didn’t score. But they stayed after it and eventually we scored on that play.

“To find a way to still score on that after you’ve missed that many times in a row, that just shows what type of half we were in for.

“We just knew we were going to have to fight, because it wasn’t going to come easy.”

Peninsula also was attacking the hoop instead of settling for off-balance jumpers or rushed 3-pointers.

The Pirates still didn’t shoot well in the second half — its shooting percentage only improved from 28 percent to 31 percent — but their aggression led to 19 second-half free throws, of which they made 16 (they were 20 of 26 for the game).

By the end of the third quarter, Bellevue’s lead was down to 45-40.

Bellevue, meanwhile, made only 9 of 33 shots from the field in the second half and only went to the line six times, making three.

“I believe we’re just a second-half team,” sophomore Cherish Moss said.

“We go in, we get a feel, and then we just come out even more on fire.”

The Pirates also had McKnight, who scored six of her team-high 20 points in the fourth quarter.

She somehow caught up to a long pass over the top of the defense for a layup while being fouled. She made the free throw to make cut the Bulldogs’ lead to 50-48.

Then a jumper by McKnight from near the free-throw line made cut the deficit to 53-50.

After getting fouled hard on a fast break, she made 1 of 2 free throws to make it 53-51.

“Jenise was rad,” Crumb said.

“She does that, though. She’s a scorer. She’s just starting to catch fire a little bit, which is good.

“J was feeling it.”

Two free throws by Smith tied the game. Two freebies by Zhara Laster gave the Pirates their first lead since the opening minutes, 55-53 lead, and two more free throws by Cierra Moss put them back gave them the lead for good at 57-56.

Smith took it from there. She made a pair of field goals, and then she was fouled by Mikayla Jones, which fouled out Bellevue’s leading scorer, and made 1 of 2 free throws to make it 62-60 with eight seconds left.

After a timeout, the Pirates sent out an all-sophomore lineup for defense: Smith, Laster, Cierra and Cherish Moss and Amanda Hutchins, who started the game at center.

Without Jones and third-leading scorer Montana Hagstrom, who missed her second consecutive game, the Bulldogs had to rely on Shelby Kassuba, who scored a game-high 24 points.

The midcourt inbounds pass went to Kassuba, at 5-foot-10 their tallest player who played, but Hutchins got a hand on it and then ripped it away, but a jump ball was called, and Bellevue maintained possession. (“That was a quick jump,” Crumb said.)

Bellevue again went to Kassuba, again defended by Hutchins, who worked the ball to the free-throw line.

Then Cherish Moss went rogue by sneaking over and knocking the ball away, and then pouncing on it.

“I just saw a big girl dribbling the ball, and I thought, I can get that. And I just went for it,” Moss said.

“And [Crumb] told us not to gamble, but I saw an opportunity, and I went for it.”

Another jump ball was called, and this time it was Peninsula’s ball with eight-tenths of a second to play.

Ball game.

And on to the next one.

As big as Saturday’s win was for the Pirates, it added even more importance to their matchup with Skagit Valley on Wednesday.

A loss to the Cardinals would drop Peninsula into a three-way tie for first place with Skagit and Bellevue. A win keeps the Pirates at the steering wheel going into their final regular-season game against Shoreline (4-8, 6-15).

“Skagit’s a big game because if we want the league championship, we have to win out,” Crumb said.

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Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.