Olympic holds off North Mason

The Trojans continued to put pressure on North Kitsap and Port Angeles with another league win on Jan. 16, defeating North Mason, 64-59.

Olympic led by 11 in the fourth quarter, but the Bulldogs were relentless and put on a late rally. Evan Turnquist led Olympic with 17 points while Jaiden Mosley chipped in 15 and Brandon Barron and Keaton Dean scored 11 and 10 respectively.

The Trojans have a favorable schedule down the stretch with just one more road game followed by three home games. If Olympic continues to keep pace with North Kitsap and Port Angeles over its next three games against Kingston, Sequim and Bremerton, at the very least, favorable playoff seeding will be on the line on Feb. 1 when the RoughRiders pay a visit to East Bremerton, if not more.

In playoff hunt

Speaking of the playoffs, the Klahowya boys and girls, Olympic girls and the Central Kitsap boys basketball teams all find themselves in the thick of heated postseason races.

The Klahowya boys just picked up a big 51-37 victory over Coupeville on Jan. 16, led by John Hartford’s 18 points and some terrific rebounding by Garrett and Landon Betzing. Port Townsend is next for the Eagles, followed by Coupeville, Chimacum, Bremerton and Coupeville again. Those two matchups with the Wolves should go a long way in determining which team gets the all-important No. 2 spot in the 1A Olympic League, and a trip to the district tournament.

On the girls side, they sit just one game out after a 28-17 loss to Coupeville on Jan. 16. The third place team in the girls 1A Olympic League gets a play-in game with the fourth placer finisher from the Nisqually League, making every game from here on out an important one. They, too, have five games left, including four league games.

The Olympic girls had a very important game against Sequim scheduled for Jan. 18, which occurred after press deadline for this week’s Central Kitsap Reporter, but before the print edition hit newsstands (see KitsapDailyNews.com and next week’s Central Kitsap Reporter for coverage of that game).

The Trojans are holding on to the fourth and final spot for a berth in the district tournament, which begins Feb. 7, and a win over Sequim would give Olympic a two-game cushion in the standings, while a loss would see the two teams tied for fourth. The two teams will play once more at Sequim on Jan. 26.

Finally, the Central Kitsap boys currently hold fifth place in the tough South Sound Conference, but will likely want to do everything it can to move up in the standings. Finishing sixth in the SSC would all but certainly mean a district playoff game with Lincoln High School of Tacoma, the No. 2 team in the state in the 3A classification, according to the WIAA RPI formula. While a game against the No. 2 team from the Pierce County League or the Greater St. Helens League — which is the honor bestowed upon the teams finishing fifth and four in the SSC — will not be much easier, there are few teams in Washington State better than the 14-0 Abes.

RPI Update

Despite the win by Olympic last week, North Kitsap retains the higher ranking in the WIAA RPI standings. The Vikings sit at 11th, while the Trojans are 16th. Both are well ahead of Port Angeles (35th), despite their current second place standing in the Olympic League. The WIAA uses RPI to seed teams that qualify for the Regional round of the Hardwood Classic.