Coupeville Sports

   Cole Payne pulled out a three-set win Friday to help lift the Wolves to a huge win over Klahowya. (John Fisken photo)

Slow start, hot finish.

Recovering nicely after a couple early bumps, the Coupeville High School boys’ tennis team stormed back to thrash host Klahowya 5-2 Friday, taking the first step to winning a league title banner.

The win lifted the Wolves to a flawless 2-0 on the season, 1-0 in 1A Olympic League play.

If the CHS boys want to join their female counterparts, who put up a league title banner in the spring, they’ll have to dethrone the defending champs, which just happens to be the team they walloped.

They did it by sweeping all four doubles matches and getting a win at #3 singles from converted football player Cole Payne.

Coupeville trailed in the match early, after dropping two of the first three matches to be wrapped.

Singles players Sebastian Davis (6-4, 6-0) and Connor McCormick (7-5, 6-2) were nicked by the Eagles, but the doubles duo of John McClarin and Joseph Wedekind rolled to a win (6-3, 6-1) to keep Wolf hopes semi-high.

Hope surged when Joey Lippo and William Nelson pulled out a victory in three sets (6-0, 5-7, 6-4) knotting the match at 2-2.

After that, it was all Wolves, all day.

Payne came back to net a 6-3, 1-6, 10-8 win in his first-ever varsity singles match, and then Coupeville got straight-sets wins from the duos of Jimmy Myers/Lilan Sekigawa (7-6, 6-4) and Grey Rische/Jared Helmstadter (6-2, 6-2).

The Wolves also rolled to wins in the only two JV matches that were done before the siren call of the ferry forced them back on the bus.

Nick Etzell and Garrett Compton won 6-3, while Nile Lockwood teamed up with Aiden Crimmins to pull a sweet 6-0 bagel job on the Eagles.