Coupeville Sports

The Wolf JV volleyball squad, perhaps the scrappiest in all the land. (John Fisken photos)

Katrina McGranahan (right) brought her big serves out in the second set.

They don’t go down easy.

Demonstrating a genuine scrappiness, the Coupeville High School JV volleyball squad almost pulled off a rally of epic proportions in the second set of what would eventually become a straight-sets loss Thursday night.

While the Wolves fell 25-15, 26-24, 25-14 to visiting Mount Vernon Christian (dropping their record to 1-2 on the season), they had a stretch of utter brilliance.

Trailing 21-10 in the second set, Coupeville roared back to flatten the Hurricanes 14-3 behind the serving of three players.

Katrina McGranahan, Mackenzi Valko and Jae LeVine suddenly started to click, with McGranahan starting things off with back-to-back aces, and the Wolves caught fire.

Along the way, one Mt. Vernon player smacked the ball off of a teammate’s face (point Coupeville) and Payton Aparicio jumped out of her shoes to drop a picture-perfect tip just out of reach of three MVC players.

While the rally ultimately fell just short, as the Hurricanes pulled out the final two points of the set to escape, it was a sustained run of excellence for a young Wolf squad.

A team jam-packed with freshmen collected some other nice moments as well.

Kameryn St Onge delivered two knockout punch-style spikes, McGranahan and Abby Parker connected on back-to-back big spikes that each ricocheted successfully off the back line and Hope “The Surgeon” Lodell converted a pair of precision aces.

The most awe-inspiring moment may have been lost in the crush of battle.

Late in the final set, at the end of one of the longer rallies of the night, Wolf sophomore Lauren Grove extended her fingers as far as she could, spinning the ball over the net with a flawless tip.

The ball knifed through several defenders, hit the floor and skidded off, leaving one Mt. Vernon player flat-footed, her mouth wide open in awe of Grove’s artistry.