January | 2013 | Coupeville Sports

Archive for January, 2013

Friday night in America: Hoop Dreams edition!!

Posted in Fashionable Fans, Girls Basketball on January 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

There is action on the court and action off the court.

Every high school basketball game encompasses more than just the flow of the game. Everywhere you look there are a billion smaller stories being played out, from the ticket takers to the concession stand moms to the guy keeping stats.

Legendary former coaches (Denny Zylstra, Larrie Ford, Randy King) mingle with precocious kids barely old enough to walk, but able to run dizzying circles around the court at halftime to the delight of the visiting fans (a quick shout-out to Drake, irrepressible lil’ nephew of Wolf hoopster Julia Felici).

Current coaches work the stands, meeting and greeting, parents swap stories and that one angry guy who everyone wants tossed from the gym sits grumbling in the corner.

Friday night in America. Pick a gym, any gym — it’s a universal story.

But this one, shot by Robert Bishop, plays out in Coupeville, so it’s better than your story.

Facts are facts.

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Madeline Strasburg is the new Hunter Hammer!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, Page Hit Queen on January 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Everyone in the joint is looking one way, except Strasburg, who has found her cameraman. (Robert Bishop photos)

“Hey, I know you!!!”

Hunter Hammer didn’t become the Page Hit King by accident.

The former Coupeville High School basketball sensation — a one-man, six-foot-seven wrecking crew who annihilated foes and laughed (oh, how he laughed) — also knew, uncannily, whenever the camera was on him.

He had a radar, a sixth sense for the click and whir of the photographer at work and always managed to position himself at the right place at the right time.

Many have come for his title since he graduated, though all Hunter has to do is throw some new pics up online and the internet melts down.

Danny Savalza, Caleb Valko, Brett Arnold — all contenders certainly.

But I give you the one who could take them all down some day, because, she, like Hunter, has that special sense for where the camera is at all times, without letting it interrupt her take-no-prisoners style of play.

Ladies and gentlemen, Madeline Strasburg!

Gird your loins, Hammer Time, she’s coming for your title.

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Play me those road-weary blues!!

Posted in Boys Basketball on January 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Aaron Curtin, seen here in a game earlier this season, and his teammates continue to play hard, but can't buy a break. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Aaron Curtin, seen here earlier this season, and his teammates continue to play hard, but can’t buy a break. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

These are the times that try men’s souls.

Two games into a six-game road trip, the Coupeville High School boys’ basketball team ran into a brutally efficient Cedarcrest squad Friday night and got slapped hard. That they came back off the mat and put out their best effort in the second half, when the game was long gone, speaks well for them, however.

The 71-28 loss, the 33rd straight defeat for the Wolves, dropped them to 0-13 overall, 0-8 in Cascade Conference play. They will get a chance to immediately bounce back Saturday, when they head to Mount Vernon Christian for a non-conference bout.

Cedarcrest tops the league at a crisp 7-1 and they showed why fairly quickly Friday. Limiting Coupeville’s shot opportunities, they rolled out to a 34-4 lead at the halftime break.

The Wolves then reversed a season-long trend of struggling in the third quarter, putting up their best showing of the night with 13 points and adding another 11 in the final period of play.

Nick Streubel rumbled through the paint for a team-high eight points, while Aaron Curtin and Carson Risner each banked in five. Ben Etzell and Aaron Trumbull popped for four apiece and Caleb Valko rounded out the Wolf scoring attack with a bucket.

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These women right here are great Americans!!

Posted in Moms, Whidbey's Best on January 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Nanette Streubel (left) and Melanie Kooch, cheeseburger “dealers.” (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Fawn Gustafson … I did not steal your pen … really!

Is there any worse moment for a sports reporter than to have his pen go dry in the middle of a basketball game?

Especially when this unnamed reporter — we’ll call him “Skippy” — was stupid enough not to bring a back-up pen, as good sports reporters are apt to do.

When that happens, it’s Def-Con 4, baby! Screw the women and children, papa needs a new writing utensil.

Thankfully, the good women in the concession stand took pity on me Friday night and provided me with a replacement pen during the break between the JV and varsity game. And also gave me a free cheeseburger as well, so, hey, silver linings and all.

Special mention must be made of my cheeseburger “dealer,” Nanette Streubel, mom of football beast Nick Streubel, and Fawn Gustafson, mother of Wolf basketball star Amanda Fabrizi, who, after seeing the first pen being offered to me (a pink one covered with pictures of princesses), dug deeper and found me a good ol’ fashioned blue and white Bic.

Thereby saving me much grief from my companions in the stands.

And how did I repay her? By stealing her pen.

Sort of.

By the time I got done talking to the coaches after the game and we left, one barely-blinking light ahead of a dark gym, the concession stand mothers were long gone. And I was left holding my ill-gotten pen.

Which I will return at the next home game on Tuesday. I promise.

For if I have learned anything in the last four months of covering Coupeville High School sports, it is this — be nice to the moms and they will be nice to you.

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Hoskins goes down swinging hard in tough hoops loss!!

Posted in Girls Basketball on January 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Jai'Lysa Hoskins, in one of her rare quiet moments Friday night. (Robert Bishop photos)

Jai’Lysa Hoskins, in a rare quiet moment Friday night. (Robert Bishop photos)

“Who has two thumbs and is gettin’ kind of tired of all these turnovers? This guy!!”

First Jai’Lysa Hoskins started. Then she tore up the joint.

Getting the call in place of a sick Makana Stone, Hoskins contributed a little bit of everything Friday night in a game Coupeville High School girls’ basketball coach David King would probably otherwise like to forget.

The senior post pumped in six points, swatted away several shots, including one she rejected fairly emphatically in the first quarter and continually sacrificed her body clawing for rebounds and loose balls. Unfortunately, with a quick, brutal Cedarcrest squad in town, it wasn’t enough to save the Wolves.

The visiting Red Wolves, fighting for the top spot in the Cascade Conference, pressed relentlessly and turned a staggering amount of steals into breakaway buckets as they rained pain down on their hosts. By the time they called off the attack in the fourth quarter, a running clock was on and they were nearly home free with a 68-23 win.

The loss dropped Coupeville to 5-8 overall, 3-5 in league play. They will get a chance to immediately bounce back as they travel off-Island Saturday to play a non-conference game at Mount Vernon Christian.

Things looked decent at the start, as Amanda Fabrizi pulled off a dandy drive down the baseline, shedding two defenders and coming up from under the basket with a beautiful swooping move for a quick score.

Then, things just kind of fell apart for an extended period of time.

While Coupeville had started the game busting Cedarcrest’s press with ease, that quickly became more of an issue, and an onslaught of tipped passes, bobbled balls and bam-bam-bam buckets left the Wolves looking up at a 27-4 deficit early in the second quarter.

After a timeout to calm down, the Wolves responded with their best extended period of play, keyed by dead-eye Breeanna Messner taking the in-bounds pass and drilling a high, arcing shot from behind the three-point stripe.

With Messner hitting for five of her team-high seven points and Hoskins and Lauren Escalle chipping in with a pair of free-throws apiece, Coupeville limited the visitors to just a 12-9 advantage over the final six minutes of the first half.

The mini-surge carried over to the start of the second half, as Hailey Hammer worked her way into the paint for back-to-back buckets.

Then, things just kind of fell apart for an extended period of time, again, as Cedarcrest, whose only league loss has been to Archbishop Thomas Murphy, closed the game with a 27-6 run.

Messner (seven), Hoskins (six) and Hammer (four) paced the Wolf scorers, while Escalle, Fabrizi and Bessie Walstad each chipped in with two points apiece.

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