Peninsula Frosh/Soph Team Loses Bay League Title in Last Game of the Season

The last and final Bay League season game for the Peninsula Frosh/Soph Team came on Thursday 2-9-17 and the timing could not have been worse. The Panthers were dealing with a slew of injuries and then the flu bug came and bit them where it hurt. The Panthers were a smaller than average team all season with their tallest player being 5'-08" and yet through hard work and determination they overcame most of their opponents to race out to an 18-3 record and 8-1 in league heading into the final contest. Then as their luck would have it they lost another player, Kevin "Elvis" Uyesugi the night before the final game in practice with a chipped bone in his ankle. Then to make matters worse they learned that one of the captains and 2nd tallest player Rhys Hershberger had come down with the flu and he was not going to be able to play. The Panthers were already reeling at the loss of Jacob Salceda who suffered a broken nose against PV just 2 weeks prior on a freak collision at half-court. Yet, the Panthers came out determined to make the most of their opportunities and see what happened.

The 1st quarter began and the smaller than usual Panthers raced out to a 19-11 lead which they gained by playing a smothering defense in a 1-3-1 zone that PV had trouble figuring out just how to attack it. The Panthers used this to create turnovers and they pushed the tempo and were getting easy fast break lay-ups. As the 1st quarter ended the Panthers were riding high on emotion and they had a 19-11 lead.

The 2nd quarter began and the PV Sea Kings began posting 2 of their big players who are both over 6'-02" down on the post and the Panthers were forced to come out of their 1-3-1 zone defense and they were forced to try and match up in a man-to-man defense against the much taller PV team. The Panthers held their own yet cracks were beginning to form in the Panther defense and they escaped the 2nd quarter having been outscored by PV 14-13 to take a 32-25 lead going into half-time.

The 3rd quarter began and the Panthers appeared to be getting tired and into foul trouble, Freshman Will Knebel picked up his 4th foul early in the quarter and he was followed by fellow freshman Tyler Shu who had been a huge juggernaut coming off the Peninsula bench this season who also picked up his 4th foul. The Panthers who were now really small with only one player being 5'-08" struggled in keeping the taller PV team out of the lane and they were outscored 30-14 in the period to take a 46-45 lead heading into the 4th and final quarter.

The Panthers and PV struggled to find any kind of consistency in the quarter and as time began to wind down both teams became tighter and tighter which was evident at the number of wide open lay=-ups that were missed as well as uncharacteristic turn-overs. As time wound down the Panthers were leading by 1 with 18.1 seconds remaining in the game and they had 15 second remaining on the shot clock. The Panthers took a time out and right after the time out Matt Laglava came off of a high screen and pulled the trigger on a jump shot that bounced off the right side of the rim and PV grabbed the ball and raced up the left side of the court, once over half court they called timeout with 4.3 seconds remaining. PV came out of the timeout and ran a play that had their 2 guard curling from halfcourt towards the basket and as time was ready to expire he stopped and shot the ball. The ball fell through the basket as the final buzzer sounded and the Panthers had lost 55-54 on a last second shot. The Panthers finished the season with a remarkable mark of 18-4 and 8-2 in league to take 2nd place. Not to bad for a team that had its tallest player at 5'-08" and suffered numerous injuries to key players throughout the season.

The Panthers were led by sophomore big man Wyatt Chang (16 points, 7 rebounds,2 steals, 1 block), freshman Tyler Shu (13 points, 1 rebound, 4 assists) and freshman Ethan Ikegami (10 points, 2 steals and 1 assist.)