Coupeville Sports

The student section does its best to rattle the cold-blooded volleyball assassins from King’s. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Haley Sherman, center, goes low to dig out a ball. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

The last time I covered a high school game in person, “Pulp Fiction” was in theaters.

When I left my job as Sports Editor with the Whidbey News-Times, I left that day-to-day live coverage behind. When I freelanced for the Examiner, there was no way I was sitting in the rain on an October night for the small sum they were paying me.

But now that I’ve launched my own blog, and now that I have actual sponsors — people who have given me money to support my cause — there can be little excuse for not getting off my rear and traveling the mile or so from my house down to CHS for live events.

Well, I’m lazy. Does that work? Yeah, probably not.

So, I found myself back in the gym again Thursday night for the Coupeville/King’s volleyball showdown. And while the building surrounding the gym is bigger and snazzier these days, it’s basically the same gym I earned a flat rear in my last time around.

The bleachers are still painfully hard. The championship banners, unfortunately, have not radically increased over the years. On a more positive note, the student section, while it is staffed with different names and faces, still retains its buzz and showmanship. Win or lose, when the current crew — led by Danny Savalza in his dress and Bow Down Hat and Caleb Valko painted like the Clown of Death — gets goin’, the bleachers get rockin’ and opposing players get rattled.

Not that King’s, an unbeaten and slightly scary crew (at least in how they unleash laser-sighted spikes) ranked third in Class 1A, got all that rattled when it mattered. The Knights romped to a 25-11, 25-3, 25-17 victory that was closer at times than the score might indicate.

Other than the middle set — when Knight ace Ali Villagran started serving and never stopped, reeling off 18 straight points despite Coupeville’s best effort to mount a resistance — the Wolves were competitive. Even in the second set they had their moments, especially when they finally brought the run of points to an end, using a timely save from Haley Sherman and a resounding, knee-buckling blast from Hailey Hammer to elicit the evening’s biggest roar from the hometown rooters.

Things started strongly, as the Wolves fought King’s to a 7-7 standstill in the opening set. Then, the Knights started ripping off low, screaming serves that singed the top of the net as they slid over, before erupting viciously right in the face of the waiting Wolves. Still down just 14-10, Coupeville was on the verge of rallying but watched in horror as things slipped away.

The final set was a doozy, with an agonizingly long break near the start, as the King’s coach rambled on to the refs endlessly as they tried to figure out a substitution snafu. Then it was a back-and-forth war of attrition, with some decent rallies and several standout plays from Breeanna Messner, including a beautiful, angled tip that froze a pack of King’s players, landing in the middle of them with a soft, satisfying plop.

The loss was Coupeville’s third straight, dropping it to 2-6 overall, 1-6 in Cascade Conference play.

Earlier in the evening, the Wolf JV squad fell 25-9, 25-6, 25-7 in a match that saw nice hustle plays from Miranda Engle, McKenzie Bailey and Kacie Kiel, pinpoint serving by Sidney Autio and some ferocious stuff blocks from Monica Vidoni.