Coupeville Sports

   Ty Eck, seen here in an earlier game, picked off a pass Friday. (John Fisken photo)

Give them credit. They never hung their heads, never gave up.

Things were rough early Friday night at Klahowya for the Coupeville High School football squad, to the point where a running clock kicked in before the halftime buzzer.

But then, down 41-0, the Wolves started to click, and they finished with maybe their strongest second-half performance of the season.

And, while it still fell 41-15 to the Eagles, Coupeville’s flickering playoff hopes stayed just that way. Flickering.

Chimacum was destroyed 63-12 by undefeated Port Townsend Friday, leaving the Wolves and Cowboys with identical 1-5 records in 1A Olympic League play.

Both are 1-7 overall and split the two games they played this season.

While early reports indicated Chimacum would claim the league’s #3 playoff berth via a point differential tiebreaker, there have been recent rumblings that the two schools will instead decide the matter on the field.

Where they would play, and whether it’s a full game or a mini game, will now be decided by league AD’s.

Both schools still have a non-conference game left on their schedule (Coupeville hosts Concrete Oct. 30), so any rubber match would happen after that game, but before the playoffs begin Nov. 6.

Port Townsend (8-0, 6-0) and Klahowya (5-3, 4-2) are guaranteed playoff berths.

Facing an amped-up Eagles squad that wanted to badly win at its Homecoming game, the Wolves struggled early.

Coupeville fell behind 20-0 after one quarter of play, as three different Klahowya players found the end zone.

Austin Keller punched in from 17 yards out, before Dylan Zuber brought back a punt for a second score.

Eagle quarterback George Harris then tacked on a short TD run of his own.

Klahowya triggered the running clock with three more scores before halftime, but, after the extra-long halftime break, Coupeville came out looking much sharper.

That was evident right from the start, as the Wolves pulled off a successful onside kick by Zane Bundy to open the second half.

While it was unable to score on that possession, Coupeville did get two second-half touchdown runs from senior Wiley Hesselgrave.

Bundy tacked on the extra point after the first score, while the Wolves caught the Eagles napping the second time around.

CJ Smith took the snap and rolled out, finding Jacob Martin in the end zone for a two-point conversion.

Martin, Hesselgrave, Lathom Kelley and Uriel Liquidano led an aggressive CHS defense that bent a little in the second half, but never broke.

Liquidano recovered a fumble to go along with a Ty Eck interception from earlier in the game.