by MICHAEL DASHIELL
Sequim Gazette
With his Wolves up a dozen points after the end of one quarter, Sequim head coach Greg Glasser wasn’t ready to assume the game was in hand.
Not with the pesky Roughriders on the court.
Sequim’s boys basketball squad fended off a spate of turnovers and held off their rivals from Port Angeles on Jan. 30 with a 48-37 win.
The Wolves got 18 points, nine rebounds and seven steals from Alex Barry, who helped hold Port Angeles to just two points in the first quarter and 14 points in the first half.
Sequim raced to a 14-0 advantage with 50 seconds left in the first quarter but never seemed to break away from the host Riders, who forced 18 Sequim turnovers for the game.
“We turned the ball over way too much,” Glasser said. “We had a chance to put a team down (and) we should have.”
A Vance Willis three-point play gave Sequim its biggest lead at 25-6 in the second quarter, but from then on it was a kind of sloppy slugfest between the rivals.
Unlike the last time the teams met (a Jan. 9, 52-46 Sequim win), Port Angeles couldn’t even up the game after falling behind early. The Roughriders closed this contest to within nine points at 34-25 on a Noah McGoff 3-pointer, but Sequim answered with an Alex Rutherford basket and Willis bomb, pushing the Sequim lead to 14 entering the fourth quarter.
“We did a good job handling poise all season,” Sequim’s Jackson Oliver said.
The Riders’ fourth quarter surge deflated when, at the 4:44 mark of the game, Barry stole a pass and drove three quarters of the court for a two-handed dunk.
Barry and Josh McConnaughey (five rebounds, four blocks) helped lead a stout Sequim defense.Oliver finished with nine points, Willis had seven and Dustin Bates added four assists.
“We know on any give night, anyone can contribute,” Barry said.
Hathaway led Port Angeles with 10 points and Rogers added eight, but struggled from the free-throw line (0-for-8).
The win kept Sequim one game behind Olympic, who topped Kingston on Friday night.
Knocking off Bulldogs
Barry scored 22 points, Willis had 21 and Oliver added 13 as Sequim breezed past North Mason’s Bulldogs at home on Jan. 27.
Barry was 4-for-8 from the 3-point line and Bates sank three 3-pointers to pace the Sequim offense.
Barry also had team highs in rebounds (13), assists (seven), steals (six) and blocks (three). Willis had nine rebounds and Peyton Glasser had seven.
The Wolves committed just nine turnovers and had 11 steals.
The Wolves led 21-11 after one quarter, 36-21 at halftime and 61-36 after three quarters.
Hunter Hohmann led North Mason with 13 points; Daniel Burggraaf had 12.
Looking ahead
Sequim was slated to take on league-leading North Kitsap (9-1, 14-4) on Feb. 3 — results were not available at press time.
The Wolves head into the West Central District tournament on Feb. 12, likely as the Olympic League’s No. 3 seed. That means a road game against the Seamount League’s No. 2 team, either Lindbergh or Evergreen. Win or lose, the Wolves play again on Feb. 14.
Glasser said the key of Sequim’s postseason fate is going to be ball-handling.
“The most important thing is taking care of the ball,” he said. “We have a lot of guys (besides Barry) who can score five, eight points a night. But if we don’t take care of it, there isn’t going to be any scoring.”
The district tourney sees six of 16 teams from the Olympic, Seamount, KingCo and South Puget Sound leagues advance to the state 2A tournament.
