Peninsula boys drop league contest to Timberline, 69-62

The Peninsula High School boys basketball team suffered its first loss of the season Wednesday night against visiting Timberline, 69-62. It was a hard-fought game but the Blazers came away with the Class 3A South Sound Conference road win.

“Timberline is a good team,” said Peninsula coach Matt Robles. “They’ve got some good players. Credit to them. Watching film, we wished our activeness and rebounding was a little better. They’ll get better.”

Robles expects the Seahawks to improve rapidly and said time together as a full unit in practice has been scarce, to this point.

“We’ve had very few practices with the entire team together,” Robles said. “Whether it’s guys wrapping up the football season, or guys getting sick, we’ve only had three, maybe four practices with the whole team. It’s just going to take some time.”

Robles has been OK with going to his bench this season — Peninsula has been 10 or 11 players deep so far.

“Everyone is doing a really good job,” Robles said. “Credit to the boys. Not often do you play 11 guys. They’re committing to it, they’re doing a really good job.”

Peninsula isn’t going to its bench just for the sake of depth, alone. Robles said he sees all players, one through 11, as viable contributors.

“I really feel like we have 10 or 11 guys that can contribute and score points,” Robles said. “So we try to keep fresh and play for the fourth quarter.”

Before Peninsula (2-1 overall, 0-1 SSC 3A) dropped one to Timberline, the Seahawks opened the season with a 69-68 win over Bremerton and a 54-47 win over Bethel. Against Bremerton, Peninsula was down by 14 in the fourth quarter before roaring back for the one-point win.

“I just love how hard we’re playing — our ‘Never say die’ attitude,” Robles said. “Both of those games were a grind. … The boys did a great job, stuck with it and won the game. I need to do a better job making sure we’re prepared. All the credit goes to the boys.”

Junior wing Seth Kasteler has been the team’s leading scorer through three games, followed by junior guard Elijah McLaughlin. Peninsula travels to Capital on Friday, Dec. 9 to face Capital. Tipoff is at 7 p.m.

This story was originally published December 9, 2016 at 1:58 PM with the headline "Peninsula boys drop league contest to Timberline, 69-62."