Coupeville Sports

      There was a time when Amanda Fabrizi (top) and Breeanna Messner were giddy and care-free. Tuesday night was not one of those times.

They tell us there are seven stages of grief, and, if you work through them all, you’ll come out the other end a happier person.

“They” are idiots.

There reaches a point in this hallowed season of the god-awful ref where you figure it can’t go any lower, it can’t be any worse.

Coupeville High School basketball, its players, its coaches and its fans have gone through shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, depression and now … nope … we’re circling back to anger, and we’re gonna be there for quite some time.

“Little Napoleon” was nowhere to be seen Tuesday night, but his comrades in arms, “Mr. Ed,” “The Bandit Queen” and “Fibber McGee” (ask your great-grandparents…) did just fine taking a thrilling, back-and-forth basketball brawl and then interjecting themselves in the end in a way that had to be witnessed in person to fully comprehend the epic dastardliness mixed with raw stupidity mixed with “how did I get a refereeing certificate?” look on all three refs faces.

Pay attention here. It’s going to get wild.

The Wolf girl hoopsters were pulling off a win for the ages, storming back from six down with under a minute to play against visiting Sultan. Amanda Fabrizi drilled a jumper that would have made a weaker woman quiver in her high tops, then the Wolves forced a turnover in the back-court, then Fabrizi slid two free-throws through the net, then the Wolves forced a five-second violation on the Turks and then …

No, wait. Despite “Mr. Ed” counting the five seconds down and loudly making the call, the third ref, “Fibber McGee,” suddenly claimed he had heard the Sultan coach call a timeout BEFORE the five-second violation.

Which is interesting, since he was nowhere near the coach, the gym was rockin’ with noise and the Sultan coach all but blushed once he realized he was getting away with grand theft basketball. While the three refs giggled like naughty kids at half-court.

The second consecutive home game in which a ref has knifed the Wolf girls not in the back, but fully in the chest with multiple witnesses and the clock running out, the game ended not with Coupeville having a chance to tie or win the game on a final possession, but in a hail of Turk free throws which bumped the final score to 47-42, or 1-0, mission accomplished, in ref speak.

There will be many who think we are whining, we are complaining, we don’t want to play the same game every other team is playing. To them I say, go stuff yourself.

We have seen a visiting player throw a punch (and NOT get ejected), a visiting player get two technicals (and NOT get ejected), a visiting player foul out (and NOT get removed) — all in the same game.

Tuesday, it was more subtle for awhile. A Sultan player tripped over her own feet and sprawled in the paint … and the foul was called on a Wolf 10 feet away. A Sultan player threw an elbow to Hailey Hammer’s head, and Hammer was called for the foul (apparently you can’t flinch).

But all the worse refs always save their best moments for soul-crushing time, and, once again, this trio hit that one out of the park.

And it stinks, because it put a damper on a hard-nosed game that went back-and-forth and featured Fabrizi busting out the Superwoman jersey. Scoring 11 of her game-high 15 points in the second half, she bounced back from early foul trouble to light up the scoreboard.

#3 was everywhere, hitting a leaning runner on a feed from Makana Stone, dropping in a three-pointer from the side that went high enough to scrape the gym ceiling before finding the bottom of the net, and basically living up to the first three letters of her last name — Fab.

She got help from everywhere, as Coupeville broke Sultan’s press with ease, improved their free-throw shooting, and shared the ball. Bessie Walstad and Breeanna Messner each banged for six, while Hammer and Lauren Escalle each popped for five. Stone tossed in three and Jai’Lysa Hoskins dumped in a bucket while hauling down rebound after rebound in traffic.

The Wolves also showed a great deal of resilience, rallying time and again. Down by five at the half, they ripped off a 13-2 run to open the third quarter, with Fabrizi and Walstad each tossing in four.

The loss, the sixth straight for Coupeville, drops the Wolves to 5-12 overall, 3-8 in Cascade Conference play.

With South Whidbey beating Lakewood 50-46, the Wolves trail the Falcons (5-6) by two games with three to play in the hunt for the #2 playoff seed of the three 1A schools in the conference.

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