Coupeville Sports

   Lauren Rose (front) and Tiffany Briscoe (white shorts) are fighting for spots on the CHS varsity roster. (John Fisken photos)

   Fab frosh (l to r) Sarah Wright, Lindsey Roberts, Maddy Hilkey and Ashlie Shank.

They are the team to beat, but that’s a bit of a doubled-edged sword.

Coupeville High School girls’ basketball stormed through the 1A Olympic League last season, with both varsity and JV squads finishing a pristine 9-0.

The varsity, led by slam-dunk league MVP Makana Stone, won every league game by 15 or more points.

But, while there’s still a nice afterglow coming off of the championship banner hanging on the gym wall, there’s also a huge bulls-eye target on this year’s Wolf team.

Klahowya, Port Townsend and Chimacum will undoubtedly come extra-hard each time they take on the defending champs, anxious to be the first to dethrone the hoop queens.

“I do know that we will not be able to walk through the three teams this year,” said CHS coach David King. “We are going to have to put in the work and play our game to give ourselves a chance to repeat.”

The Eagles and RedHawks both have new coaches (“It will be interesting to see how they play us this year vs. how they played us last year”) while the Cowboys are a fast-rising team.

“Chimacum, we saw them at camp.  They have improved and return a good core of players as well,” King said. “The second and third round last year they played us tough.

“To say who our biggest foe will be this year, that’s a tough question,” he added. “Maybe Chimacum, just because we know what they have and how they play, but I wouldn’t sleep on the other two teams.”

As they prepare for their defense, the Wolves will do so minus 70% of last year’s varsity roster.

Six Wolves (Kacie Kiel, Monica Vidoni, Madeline Strasburg, Hailey Hammer, Wynter Thorne and Julia Myers) graduated and a seventh (McKenzie Bailey) chose not to play this year.

Leading the returning trio of players is Stone, who put together the sixth-best single-season scoring performance in CHS girls’ hoops history as a junior.

The rare player capable of playing all five positions on the floor, offensively and defensively, she will be the focal point, but is far from the team’s only weapon.

Sophomore point guard/wing Mia Littlejohn and junior wing/post Kailey Kellner join Stone to form the core.

“Having the reigning MVP back for another season is always a good thing,” King said. “Add in Mia and Kailey, both that can do some special things on the court as well and compliment Makana and not put the burden on Makana to have to do it all.”

Among the early favorites to join the trio on the varsity are the stars of last year’s JV squad and a newcomer with strong basketball bloodlines.

Defensive-minded juniors Lauren Grove, Tiffany Briscoe and Skyler Lawrence, sophomores Lauren Rose and Kyla Briscoe and freshman Lindsey Roberts have all made statements in the first week of practice, though nothing is settled.

A pack of freshmen (Sarah Wright, Ashlie Shank, Ema Smith, Maddy Hilkey, Nicole Lester and Lindsey Laxton) and sophomores Allison Wenzel, Brisa Herrera and Brittany Sass-Powers round out what is currently an 18-player roster.

Whether they end up on varsity or JV, each Wolf will need to fully commit for the program to continue its success from last season. King is preaching mental toughness.

“The players have really bought into the One Team, One Goal, Family theme we had last year,” King said. “That is huge with such a young team. Our leaders do a great job of promoting team and encouraging each other; that is then carried up and down the roster.

“Losing six seniors and their leadership along with the talent they brought is always tough,” he added. “We know how well our JV team played last year and we expect nothing less of them at the varsity level. It’s getting used to the game speed and talent of the other team and having them know they belong and can play against anyone.

“Once they believe in themselves and play with confidence, we will be alright.”

Coupeville will attack on both sides of the ball, but needs to continue to fine-tune its shooting touch to go with the aggressiveness.

“Our strengths will be our quickness and the never give in or up attitude,” King said. “We have some players that can be hard to defend and on a whole we are a very solid defensive team.

“Shooting. We have got to get better in this area. Teams that play zone against us are going to dare us to beat them from the outside,” he added. “We have to make them pay.”

With such a whole-sale change to the roster, the most important thing might simply be getting used to playing with each other as a unit.

Seven of the current Wolves played fall ball this year, which should help ease the transition.

“Because we only have two returning full-time varsity players and a third (Kellner) that moved up at the end of the season, our first goal is to mesh as a team. We need to know each others strengths and weaknesses,” King said. “Once we figure these things out, then our other goals will fall into place.

“We are going to have growing pains and may show signs of inconsistency, but as the season moves on this should smooth out,” he added. “The obvious goal is to play hard every game from the tip off to the end of each game. If we give effort and play to our strengths we will be very competitive.”

The Wolves want to control the regular season again, but they also want to go deeper into the playoffs than last season, when they went two and out after a 15-5 regular season.

“As the season goes, we want to defend our league title, not just make it to the district play-offs, but go there to win. From there, getting to state is where we want to be,” King said. “Our opponents this season are much the same from last season. No easy win on our schedule.

“I like that and what it should do for us if we are successful against these teams is give us the added confidence we need to for the postseason.”