Coupeville Sports

Kailey Kellner had a deadly shooting touch Monday, scoring a team-high 11. (John Fisken photo)

There were huge chunks of the game that felt like a win.

And while that wasn’t reflected on the scoreboard — where the Coupeville High School JV girls’ basketball team fell 32-17 to visiting Mt. Baker Monday to drop to 2-2 — it doesn’t make it any less true.

If you were looking, there were major positives.

Wolf sophomore Kailey Kellner continues to grow into a team leader, scoring all her team’s points until midway through the third.

Refusing to bend to aggressive Mountaineer defenders, she pounded the ball inside, then popped outside and drilled long-distance jumpers on her way to an 11-point performance.

Fellow sophomore and feisty spark-plug Lauren Grove made her presence felt when she elevated and rejected a Mt. Baker shot while on the run.

Coming from behind the shooter while zooming like the track star she is, Grove got nothing but ball, a fact everyone but the ref acknowledged.

Keeping alive a night-long trend, he whistled her for a foul. Then looked guilty.

With a non-stop series of tweets, it looked like the Wolves would lose most of their seven players before halftime, yet somehow avoided that fate.

In a bit of a surprise, the refs later swallowed their whistles and only one player (Kellner) fouled out, and not until the game’s final minute.

That came during Coupeville’s best defensive stand.

Trailing 28-12 entering the fourth, the Wolves refused to crumple, holding Baker scoreless for almost six full minutes.

With Kellner, Grove, Kyla Briscoe, Tiffany Briscoe, Brisa Herrera and (especially) Allison Wenzel getting chippy and fighting for loose balls, Mattea Miller capped the stand with a superb sacrifice.

Frantically back-pedaling to get ahead of a Mountaineer fast break, she snapped into position at the last possible second, held her ground and got leveled by an out-of-control dribbler to successfully draw the charge.

The collision rocked her off her feet but as the ref whistled an offensive foul, Miller let a smile smile play on her lips. But just for a second and then she was all business again, as usual.

More proof that, even in a loss, the Wolf young guns are a team to be respected.