Sitting, l to r, Tiffany Briscoe, Jae LeVine, coach Brett Smedley. Standing, Valen Trujillo, Lauren Grove, Carlie Rosenkrance, Mattea Miller, Skyler Lawrence. (Mindy Grove photo).
I had a flashback recently.
There was a moment in a Coupeville Middle School girls’ basketball game recently, when Wolf 8th grader Valen Trujillo went for a loose ball and it was like I was back in the early ’90s again, and it was glorious.
In the moment Trujillo ripped the ball out of her opponent’s hands with such violent force that she lifted the other girl off the ground and deposited her several feet from where she had involuntarily left the court, I saw Jodi Christensen again.
Christensen, now a mild-mannered mom operating under the married name of Crimmins, was an incredibly nice young woman off the court and a wild beast between the lines. She didn’t play dirty, but she freaked people out — including some of her own teammates — with her intensity.
Somewhere Marlys (West) Holmes is still flinching.
Jodi came after you like a rabid dog, and there was nowhere to hide. The ball belonged to her and nothing was going to stop her from obtaining it.
She was a walking, talking collection of bruises, eliciting screams as she barreled into benches, bounced off walls and laid herself on the line every second she played. Then, as other players counted their fingers and toes to make sure they were all there, she would stroll away with a happy smile on her beaming face.
Which is EXACTLY what Trujillo does. Every single glorious time.
I say glorious because next year is going to be Hell on Earth for Coupeville High School opponents.
Some teams may come to town with more talent, but if the players from this year’s 8th grade squad mesh with the back alley brawlers who were on the high school JV team, those other teams will also leave town shaky and nervous, like the King’s 8th grader who ran crying from the gym this season.
You take McKayla “Turtle Shell” Bailey and her scrappers (Kacie Kiel, Wynter Thorne, Emily “I Will Rip Your Head Off” Coulter, etc.) and pit them against Trujillo, Skyler Lawrence, Tiffany Briscoe and Co., and you may have some wild practices.
Lawrence is like a vacuum cleaner on the boards, refuses to let anyone strip the ball and hustles her rear off. When your post player is out at the front of the break on almost every play, that is commitment.
Lauren Grove and Mattea Miller come almost as hard as Trujillo does, Carlie Rosenkrance brings the offense and while Jae LeVine may be the smallest girl on the court, she buzzes all over the place and NEVER backs down on defense. Plus her three-point dance is the best.
With the team leaders being Breeanna Messner and Amanda Fabrizi (they may be cheerleaders, but Fabrizi kicked a girl in the HEAD this year — sort of by accident — and Messner’s pink shoes can’t disguise a cold-blooded killer on the court), the Wolves will be, if nothing else, seriously scrappy next season.
They will be like a pack of Jodi Christensen’s, varsity and JV.
Just they way they should be.
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