Coupeville Sports

Miranda Engle (left) and McKenzie Bailey will both miss a chunk of the basketball season with injuries. (Melissa Losey photo)

No Baileys on the court tonight.

The twin terrors of the hardwood known as McKayla and McKenzie Bailey will be out of uniform when Coupeville High School hosts Archbishop Thomas Murphy (JV 5/varsity 6:45), but for different reasons.

Older sister McKayla is in Las Vegas for a softball tournament, while middle sister McKenzie will be on the bench after suffering an injury in her last game.

Youngest sister Molly should be fully functioning and shooting hoops at halftime, but, unfortunately, is not old enough to see playing time yet.

McKenzie Bailey became the second Wolf girls hoops player to be knocked out for extended time this week (following in the painful footsteps of Miranda Engle), after taking a hard fall during a game at Sultan.

The initial diagnosis is a sprained elbow, though the possibility of a hairline fracture has not been ruled out.

“She is super disappointed at the diagnosis and hopes to be back sooner rather than later,” said mom Donna Bailey. “She’s out two weeks minimum, longer if the pain persists.

“For now it’s a compression sleeve (for swelling) and a sling to help keep it elevated and immobile.”

The injury happened when McKenzie Bailey got a taste of hard-nosed basketball, Sultan-style.

“What happened was that one of my teammates threw the ball over my head. I turned around cause luckily the ball was going towards our basket,” McKenzie Bailey said. “So I started running after the ball and just as I grabbed the ball one of the Sultan girls came up behind me and pushed me down, which then caused me to land to the floor elbow first.

“As I went down she kinda came down with me and landed on me,” she added. “It hurt pretty bad so there was some tears but the ref actually had the nerve to tell me to calm down.”

At which point the always-competitive Bailey (it’s a family trait) gave the ref the stink-eye.

“I looked at my elbow when he said that and there was already a huge bump forming,” she said. “Obviously the ref didn’t know what he was talking about. Kinda like the rest of the game…”

While Bailey is following her doctor’s advice, it’s eating away at her.

“When the doctor told me yesterday that I would be out for that long I actually started to cry,” Bailey said. “So hopefully I will be back really soon cause it really sucks sitting on the sidelines not being able to play a sport you love.”