Coupeville Sports

   You can’t contain Brian Shank, you can only hope the refs conspire to stop him. (John Fisken photo)

In the end, the refs were the true spoilers.

The trio on the court for Tuesday night’s JV boys’ basketball game robbed the world of a great finish by hobbling Coupeville right at the worst moment, conspiring to foul out Brian Shank one shot away from achieving sainthood.

Without their three-point-bomb-droppin’, power-move-throwin’-down offensive juggernaut on the floor for the final minute and a half, the Wolves were unable to pull out a last-second miracle and fell 40-38 to visiting Port Townsend.

A phantom fifth foul on Shank (he was standing straight up, regardless of what a blind ref thinks they saw, and I have a gym full of equally “impartial” fans who will back me up) was the only way anyone was going to stop the CHS junior on this night.

Up until then, the RedHawks were unable to do much of anything with him, as Shank threw down a game-high 16, including the bucket which staked Coupeville to its final lead at 35-33.

And he was scoring every which way possible.

At one point in the first quarter, Shank hit a trey after releasing the ball from somewhere out around the locker room, then followed that up with a soft jumper.

The punctuation mark?

On the next play, he blocked a Port Townsend shot, grabbed the ball before it could go out of bounds, then spun, led the charge up court and roared coast-to-coast for a bucket as RedHawk players wilted in his path.

But when the dastardly refs decided to knife Coupeville, the Wolves were left without the one player who was absolutely locked-in all night.

Not that they went down easily, as Hunter Downes, back in action after recovering from a nasty injury, sliced through the paint for a hard-fought bucket to tie things up at 37.

But missed free throws in the waning seconds came back to haunt the Wolves, who had a last-gasp trey fall short at the buzzer.

Coupeville led for much of the night, building its biggest lead at seven early in the fourth, before foul trouble and inconsistent shot selection conspired to make life tough.

Gabe Eck tossed in eight in support of Shank, while Ty Eck netted six off of back-to-back third-quarter three-balls.

Downes dropped in four, Cameron Toomey-Stout slid a pair of free throws through the net and James Vidoni sank a gorgeous ten-footer to cap the scoring.

Araiah Bepler, Andre Avila and Beauman Davis rounded out the players who saw floor time, while injured Luke Merriman played faithful water boy for his teammates while hobbling around in a foot brace.