DISTRICT BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS: Riders clutch on offense and defense in win over Sequim<\/p>\n
Published 11:30 am Friday, February 20, 2026<\/p>\n
SEQUIM \u2014 Last February, when the Port Angeles and Sequim boys basketball teams played in the postseason with the season on the line, the Wolves came through big in the clutch in the second half to end the Roughriders\u2019 season and move on to the state 2A tournament.<\/p>\n
This year, it was the other way around as Port Angeles\u2019 Hunter Flores and Daniel Benoit hit some huge shots in the fourth quarter while getting stop after stop on defense to hold off Sequim 56-45 in a loser-out District 3 tournament thriller.<\/p>\n
The Riders will move on to play Franklin Pierce at 5:15 p.m. today in Bremerton with the winner moving on the state 2A tournament. The Wolves\u2019 season is over with a record of 10-12.<\/p>\n
It was a remarkable turnaround for Port Angeles, which, just two days earlier, fell behind to Clover Park 48-19 and lost 64-43.<\/p>\n
Head coach Kevin Ruble said the Riders hadn\u2019t seen the kind of defensive pressure that Clover Park put on Port Angeles. In the long run, it made the Riders a better team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat Clover Park game helped us,\u201d he said. \u201cFranklin Pierce plays very similar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruble said the Riders did so many things right in that second half.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey took great shots. They got stops. They handled the clock. This team has matured so much,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just came in the next day focused,\u201d Benoit said. \u201cWe\u2019re not ready to go home yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey hit some shots down the stretch,\u201d said Sequim coach Craig Brooks.<\/p>\n
Brooks said he could tell before the game started that this was going to be a different Port Angeles team from the Clover Park game.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring warmups, I could see it in their eyes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brooks told his players after the game that he was proud of them and proud of what they accomplished this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of the way they competed and worked hard all season. I\u2019m proud of the seniors [Zeke Schmadeke, Solomon Sheppard, Sebastian Buhrer, Hunter Tennell]. They worked hard all year long.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game was close early with the Riders taking a 30-24 lead into the half.<\/p>\n
One of the things that killed Port Angeles against Clover Park was a terrible start to the second half. Again, it was opposite Thursday night. Flores hit one of his three 3-pointers and post Brock Hope scored a pair of baskets to quickly give the Riders a 39-27 lead early in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Sequim rallied a couple of times, getting a couple of thunderous dunks from Sheppard and Nolan Bacchus. The Wolves got as close as 42-38 with 1:30 left in the third. But the Riders responded with two more 3-pointers from Flores and four straight points from Brody Pierce to get the lead back to 52-38 with 5:30 left in the game. <\/p>\n
Benoit added a 3-pointer right at the 30-second shot clock buzzer to give the Riders a commanding 55-40 lead with 4:45 left in the game. That was devastating as it put Sequim in a deep hole without a lot of time left.<\/p>\n
That was Port Angeles\u2019 final field goal of the night, but it didn\u2019t need any more baskets as the defense prevented Sequim from mounting any kind of comeback. The Wolves managed just five points over the final 4:45. The rivals each scored just seven points in the fourth quarter as defense took over the game.<\/p>\n
Flores and Pierce led the Riders with 19 points each. Hope had a huge game with eight points and at least five blocked shots.<\/p>\n
Sheppard led Sequim with 14 points, while Mason Rapelje and Bacchus each scored 11. <\/p>\n
Win or lose today, the Riders (12-10) are assured to finish the season with a winning record in Ruble\u2019s first season as coach. <\/p>\n
Franklin Pierce had a record of 15-8 and finished third in the South Puget Sound League with an 11-3 record in league.<\/p>\n
Port Angeles 56, Sequim 45<\/p>\n
PA 17 13 19 7 \u2014 56<\/p>\n
Seq. 15 9 14 7 \u2014 45<\/p>\n
Port Angeles (56) \u2014 Flores 19, Pierce 19, Hope 8, Benoit 4, Brenkman 4, Ruddell 2.<\/p>\n
Sequim (45) \u2014 Sheppard 14, Rapelje 11, Bacchus 11, Schmadeke 4, Tennell 3, Reynolds 2.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Sports editor Pierre LaBossiere can be contacted at sports@
\npeninsuladailynews.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DISTRICT BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS: Riders clutch on offense and defense in win over Sequim Published 11:30 am Friday, February…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,221581,452,453],"class_list":["post-481656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-preps","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}