Coupeville Sports

The Wolf defense sets up and waits to receive serve. (David King photo)

Rough first set. Very close second and third sets.

That was the tale of the tape for the Coupeville High School JV volleyball squad Thursday night in Langley. A point here or there in the latter stages, and we’d be talking about a win.

Instead the Wolves absorbed a 25-11, 29-27, 25-17 loss to host South Whidbey, dropping their record to 1-3 on the season.

The highlight of the evening was the middle set, where the two teams went toe-to-toe.

“We had a lot of hustle plays,” said Wolf coach Amy King. “Girls all moving with the ball, sizing up the hitters and being ready for them as well as doing a much better job of taking care of the ball.

“The score was very even the entire game,” she added. “Nobody got ahead by more than a few, nobody got behind by more than a few and it came down to a missed serve. It was an exciting game.”

The one-two combo of big-hitting freshmen Tiffany Briscoe and Valen Trujillo powered Coupeville in the set. Briscoe laid down 10 serves, with three aces, while Trujillo connected on eight, twice jamming aces past the Falcon receivers.

The opening and closing sets were more hit-and-miss. With very few serves, the Wolves struggled through the start of the match, but did get nice kills from Miranda Engle and Monica Vidoni (two kills), as well as “two nice tips” from sophomore sensation McKenzie Bailey.

In the final set of the evening, the action was closer than the final score, King said.

Briscoe knocked home two more service aces, and the Wolves support crew came through with big plays.

Emily Coulter put together a nice run of serves, Lauren Grove soared to collect the first block of her short volleyball career and foreign exchange student Merle Fitzenhagen played strongly in the back row.