WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL: Peninsula women bounce back after first loss of season

WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL: Peninsula women bounce back after first loss of season

WENATCHEE — The Peninsula basketball women bounced back from a heartbreaking last-second loss in the opener of the Wenatchee Valley Tournament by bouncing back and crushing Chemeketa 62-48 on Sunday.

That game was not as close as the final score shows as the Pirates (3-1) were up 56-32 midway through the fourth quarter.

Leilani Padilla led the Pirates, hitting four 3-pointers and scoring 22. Casandra White shot a perfect 3-for-3 from beyond the arc and scored 11. White also led Peninsula in rebounds with seven.

Logan Luke scored 10 for the Pirates and Brianna Fitzgerald tallied eight assists.

Padilla and White shot a combined 7-for-11 from 3-point range the day after the Pirates struggled from outside in a one-point loss to Yakima Valley.

Peninsula 62, Chemeketa 48

PC 17 26 9 10 — 62

Chem. 7 10 11 20 — 48

Peninsula (62) — Padilla 22, White 11, Luke 10, Ontiveros 7, Johnson 6, Fitzgerald 2, McCaulley 2, Vicente 2, Brown.

Chemeketa (48) — Mike 22, Bender 12, Romero 7, McGlothan 5, Wombacher 2.

Saturday’s Game Yakima Valley 56, Peninsula 55

The Pirates were three seconds away from victory in Saturday’s game, hanging on to a 55-54 lead when the Yaks’ Callie Delp hit a jumper, her only basket of the game, to give Yakima Valley the victory at the end of the contest.

Peninsula had fought back from at times a huge deficit to take a lead late in the fourth quarter. The Yaks held a lead of 31-18 at one point in the second quarter. The Pirates rallied with an 8-3 run at the end of the half to make it 34-26 at the break.

Yakima Valley opened the lead back up to a comfortable margin of 50-38 with 9 minutes left in the game when the Pirates began a huge comeback to nearly pull the game out.

Padilla hit a 3-pointer to begin the rally. Amari Brown added a pair of baskets and Padilla hit a second 3-pointer to give pull the Pirate to within one at 52-51. Brown hit another bucket to give the Pirates their first lead of the game at 53-52 with 2:42 left.

The game see-sawed back and forth over the final three minutes with three lead changes down the stretch. Sunshine Vicente gave the Pirates a 55-54 lead with 1:05 left with a basket and it looked like the lead would hold until Delp’s clutch shot.

The Pirates struggled outside, shooting 2-14 from beyond the arc as Padilla’s two fourth-quarter bombs were the Pirates’ only shots made from 3-point range. Peninsula also shot just 9-for-21 from the free-throw line.

Padilla led the Pirates with 17 points and four steals, while Luke had 12 rebounds to go with seven points. Kayla Johnson led the Pirates in assists and steals with five each.

Peninsula (3-1) next gets a crack at the defending NWAC champion Wenatchee Valley (4-1) on Dec. 6 at the Pierce College Tournament in Puyallup.

Yakima Valley 56, Peninsula 55

PC 10 16 12 17 — 55

YV 16 18 16 6 — 56

Peninsula (55) — Padilla 17, White 7, Luke 7, Vicente 7, Brown 6, Johnson 5, Fitzgerald 4, Ontiveros 2, McCaulley.

Yakima Valley (56) — Rasmussen 19, Hart 10, Mills 8, Willett 5, Vasquez 5, Delp 4, Aleck 3, Sinclair 2.

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