Coupeville Sports

Maia Sparkman, a hat trick-scoring class act. Too bad she’s not a Wolf.

Dang it.

Maia Sparkman plays for the wrong school, but you can’t dislike her — even when she’s busy whuppin’ on the right team.

When I threw out an olive branch briefly to South Whidbey High School earlier this year (after much poking of them), Ms. Sparkman was the first Falcon to respond, and not by staring daggers at me for an entire basketball game, as most of them are fond of doing.

In her answers, I found her to be an intelligent, well-spoken, extremely gracious young woman who has fought back from a terrible ankle injury to reclaim her rightful spot on the soccer pitch.

Even when I gave her a chance to rip me for my trash talking about her school, she proved to be far more mature and well-reasoned than I was, taking the high road and speaking about her love for her school and not slamming another school.

She’s a class act, through and through.

So, while there’s little for Wolf fans to be thrilled about after South Whidbey came up the Island and snatched a 3-0 victory away Tuesday night, you have to give a round of applause to Sparkman.

It was her hat trick which swung the game in favor of the Falcons (3-9) — while the exceedingly friendly Cassie Neil (double dang), another brilliant young woman who I have written a feature story about, shut out Coupeville (2-9) in goal for the second time this season.

So, it is what it is. Some nights you can dislike the result, but appreciate the people responsible for it.