By Terry Mosher
Editor, Sports Paper
Klahowya ran into almost its exact mirror image Monday night at the Eagles Next on the school’s campus when Port Angeles showed up for an Olympic League boy’s basketball game.
And the mirror image proved to be the better image.
Port Angeles, using a five-in and five-out substitution pattern that Klahowya uses, scored 38 second-quarter points en route to a 51-27 halftime lead and ballooned the margin to over 30 points in the third period before the Eagles made a late run to make the final 84-62 score a little more respectable.
“It’s an up-and-down system,” said Port Angeles’ second-year coach Brent Stephens. “It’s not exactly like the Grinnell System (that Klahowya uses), but it’s similar. It’s got some similar philosophies and principles, and the basic play is similar.”
One difference is that Klahowya, when it has the use of its entire roster, which it didn’t to start the game because several players missed Saturday practice and had to sit out the first quarter, it likes to double team the ball at all times.
The system Stephens uses allows the ball handler to run into a double-team trap. And depending on the opponent, he may substitute less than five players a time. But he will move players in and out on a regular basis.
“Sometimes only three will come in, sometimes one, it just depends,” Stephens said. “We decide how deep we have to go. We knew Klahowya was going to be super deep. They were going to play all their kids. The last thing we wanted to do was to get tired with our top seven or eight guys. So we just decided to match them – five in and five out.”
The amazing thing for Klahowya is that coach Jim Horan didn’t have his usual 13 players to run in and out every 35-45 seconds because missed practice on Saturday by some of the players, and yet the Eagles played well enough to battle PA to nearly a standstill in the first eight minutes.
But then the roof cave in. The Roughriders (4-2, 3-1 in league) forced 12 of Eagles’ 17 first-half turnovers in the second quarter, and got eight points each from Hayden Gunderson and Hunter Hathaway to outscored Klahowya 38-15 in the period.
“They double the ball, but it’s more of a run and jump (trap),” said Horan. “They let you bring the ball up the court and then they bring somebody toward the ball later. But it’s still five guys in and five guys out, and pressing.”
The score got out of hand by the end of three quarters (69-39) and only that late run by the Eagles, fueled by nine points from Ricky Holguin, who scored a game high 21 points, made the final score look better.
“We pumped out brakes a little bit in the fourth quarter,” Stephens said. “A couple kids got their first points of the season.”
Port Angeles forced 30 turnovers, and the Eagles (1-5, 0-3 in league) pressured the Roughriders into 15.
“We were missing some guys in the first quarter, so we had to slow the game down (no full court pressure while falling back into a 2-3 zone),” said Horan. “We didn’t press. We only had nine guys available.’”
Even when Horan had all 13 of his players in the second quarter, the PA press and trapping defense along with its command of the boards, did in the Eagles. The Roughriders out rebounded the Eagles 33-7 in the first half and 52-26 for the game. Many of the Eagles’ rebounds came in the latter part of the fourth quarter in desperation time against the Roughriders’ bench.
“I thought the second half when we just kind of cut loose and went a little crazy, that is when we started to get some momentum,” Horan said,” and chipped away at the lead, got the crowd involved and got the kids a little more excited.”
The Eagles try to break into the league win column Wednesday night at Port Townsend, although the class A Redskins will not be an easy task. The Redskins dropped North Mason Monday night, 71-58.
Port Angeles 84, Klahowya 62
Port Angeles 13 38 18 15 – 84
Klahowya 12 15 12 23 – 62
Port Angeles (82) – Derek Schumacher 17, Brady Konopaski 6, Austin Polly 2, Tristen Isett 4, Hunter Hathaway 16, Hayden Gunderson 14, Connor Heilman 1, Logan Ciachuch 5, Steven Lauderback 10, Kyle Rosander, Lambros Rogers 7, John Boesenberg 2.
Klahowya (62) – Jacob Gotchall 5, Mitchell Knuckey 4, Dustin Brewer 9, Jerry Landram 2, Ricky Holguin 21, Austin Wischhoefer 2, Kendall Kitts 8, Connor Schnuit, Jon Harris 2, Nate Hough 1, Justin Moore 1, Michael Mosher. Ryan Gotchall 7.