Skyler Lawrence, the next great Wolf basketball star. (Amy King photos)
Don’t let Valen Trujillo’s smile fool you. She will body-slam a girl.
Bree Daigneault basks in the glow of scoring on a beautiful bucket. (Amy Briscoe photos)
Tiffany Briscoe fires up a free-throw.
These Wolves are a feisty bunch.
With Valen Trujillo body-slamming everyone she could get her hands on and Skyler Lawrence playing like a force of nature in the paint, the Coupeville Middle School 8th grade varsity girls’ basketball squad backhanded visiting Lakewood Wednesday.
By the time they had used an 11-6 fourth quarter run to seal the deal on a hard-fought 21-17 win, Coupeville had sent at least one opposing player running out of the gym crying and may have psychologically scarred the Cougars for years.
Excellent.
Next year’s Coupeville High School girls’ basketball tryouts are going to be a battle royale.
With six seniors departing, a huge chunk of an extremely feisty Wolf JV squad, led by back alley brawlers Kacie Kiel and McKayla Bailey, will look to step up. Joining them will be this year’s 8th graders, a group of ball-hawks who hit the boards, the floor, and, sometimes, their opponents’ faces, with a refreshing intensity.
Trujillo, who twice ripped balls out of player’s hands with such force she lifted the Lakewood player off the ground, is the enforcer, a relentless defender who drives people batty, then strolls away with a small smile on her lips.
Backing her up are the bruisers, post players Lawrence and Tiffany Briscoe, who dominate the paint like they paid for it.
Lawrence was everywhere Wednesday, hauling in every rebound that came anywhere remotely close to her, then busting her rear up the court, getting out and rumbling on the break. Also showing a soft touch, she popped for six of her game-high 13 points in the deciding fourth-quarter surge, then closed things out with two distinctive plays.
First she suddenly abandoned her dependable short jump shot and whipped the ball off the rim like a shot put, banking it off the glass to push Coupeville’s lead to 18-15. Then she suddenly reversed gears and picked the pocket of a speedy guard trying to blow past her at mid-court, setting up Mattea Miller for a three-point play to clinch the win.
With dependable outside gunners Jae LeVine and Carlie Rosenkrance in a rare shooting funk, the Wolves trailed for most of the first three quarters. But their ferocious defense kept things close, before back-to-back buckets from Lawrence tied the game at 10 with under a minute to play in the third.
Feasting on the tears of the Cougars — one Lakewood player dissolved after being called for an intentional foul, while another tried to pile-drive Trujillo’s face through the floor — Coupeville turned up the intensity to an even higher level in the fourth quarter.
A free throw from Lauren Grove kicked things off, then Lawrence and Miller went to work and the rest was a sprint to the celebration at the end.
The future of Wolf basketball? It’s coming and it’s going to beat you black and blue.
The rest of the night:
The other three games weren’t as pleasant, as the 7th grade JV fell 28-4 (Brittany SassPowers and Kameryn St. Onge scored), the 7th grade varsity was bounced 34-6 (Mia Littlejohn, Katrina McGranahan and Emily Rose scored) and the the 8th grade JV lost 17-4 (Bree Daigneault and Robin Cedillo scored).
Still, there were some highlights. The Lakewood 7th grade varsity has destroyed its opponents this season, and Coupeville held it to a season-low in points and was complimented by the Cougar coach for still coming after his team hard in the final moments of the game.
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