Carson Risner, movin’ like he owns the paint. (Shelli Trumbull photo)
This town deserves a better class of referee.
In a season marked by some of the most suck-tastic refs ever seen in a high school gymnasium, the nadir was found Saturday night.
In the best game this Coupeville High School boys’ basketball team has played, the Wolves were repeatedly whacked, shoved, belted and taunted by visiting Orcas Island.
Then, when they were bloodied but still hanging on, they were knifed by some of the worst calls and non-calls since the Russians “beat” the U.S. at the ’72 Olympics.
You can look at it one of two ways.
At first glance, the Wolves played valiantly and fell just short, dropping a 66-61 game to the Vikings. In that view, nine Coupeville players scored and the Wolves put up their biggest point total of the year, with a game that came down to the final seconds.
At second glance, however, you could justifiably think that the rules of high school basketball had suddenly been rewritten.
How else to explain an Orcas player fully throwing a punch and NOT being ejected?
An Orcas player getting two technical fouls and NOT being ejected?
An Orcas shot hitting the top of the backboard in full view of three refs, a gym full of fans and probably Santa Claus himself (these refs are getting coal) and somehow still considered live, allowing a rebound to be put back up and in?
The worst was the punch.
There is no sugar-coating this. We’re not talking about a push, or a shove, or a half-hearted swing. An Orcas player, mad at being surrounded by three Wolves putting defensive pressure on him and forcing him into a corner, dropped the ball after a foul was called and swung.
With these refs, if he had connected, they would have called a technical on Coupeville for hurting the Viking player’s fist.
It is a crock. A shame. A stain on the game.
And it casts a pall over what was, by far, the best, most consistent effort put together by the Wolves this season.
Flying to the ball on defense, pouring in shots on offense, Coupeville blew out to a 13-1 lead. Aaron Curtin and Aaron Trumbull rained down three-pointers and Caleb Valko went coast-to-coast on a steal and the joint was hoppin’.
Ignoring a feisty Orcas Island squad which attempted to turn the game into a WWE match (an Orcas player responded to Drew Chan picking his pocket by bodily hefting and slamming the Wolf senior to the floor like he was the animal in a steer wrestling event), Coupeville held on to the lead from the opening tip well into the third quarter.
The Wolves hit a rough spot in the third, but surged back to within two on an inside bucket from Morgan Payne and two dynamite driving jumpers from Ben Etzell.
The refs immediately remedied that with an odd call that gave Orcas four free-throws on one play, and then came the wacky fourth.
The ball off of the top of the backboard, Curtin wiping out the Orcas water cooler while in pursuit of a loose ball, a late 9-1 Wolf charge and then the punch that everyone but the Three Blind Mice saw — even though it happened inches away from one of the refs.
The high point? None of the Wolf players took the frequent bait and started the riot that was waiting to break out. Even in a loss, one team tried to stay classy, and it wasn’t the guys eating at McDonalds on their way off the Island.
Curtin paced Coupeville with a season-high 12, many coming on daring raids in the paint, while Etzell hit for 10 and Chan pumped in nine. Nick Streubel banked in eight, Trumbull swished seven, Carson Risner banged for six and Valko dropped in five. Payne and Anthony Bergeron each chipped in with a bucket.
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