Coupeville Sports

   Ulrik Wells, here lining up a free throw Tuesday, delivered a blocked shot that sparked a huge fourth-quarter run. (John Fisken photo)

Go back, erase the second quarter and we got ourselves a barn-burner.

Tuesday night’s JV boys basketball clash between Coupeville and Port Townsend was a back-and-forth affair, highlighted by a big-game performance from Wolf frosh Sean Toomey-Stout.

It had strong work early from the Wolves.

Plus a great surge down the stretch from a tired seven-man squad facing a team that was able to sub in five fresh new players every few minutes.

So much good stuff.

And then there was the stinky cheese second quarter, when eternally-upbeat CHS coach Dustin Van Velkinburgh looked like a man who had just been slapped in the face 73 times in a row.

Take away those soul-crushing eight minutes and Coupeville is up 31-29.

Put that 23-6 second quarter back in the books, however, and the Wolves lose 52-37.

Now 6-5 overall, 2-2 in Olympic League play, the CHS young guns held up well despite missing more than half their roster.

Injuries, vacations and academic issues left a whopping eight of 15 Wolves unavailable coming out of winter break, assuring Van Velkinburgh of having little problem finding a seat on his very empty bench.

Shrugging off their lack of numbers, the young guns came out blazing in the first.

Toomey-Stout led the charge at the hoop, swooping and diving and leaving the RedHawks grasping at air as he banked in six of his game-high 19 in the opening quarter.

A running jumper from Mason Grove staked the Wolves to a 10-9 lead heading into the break and things were still looking great when a three-ball from Grove knotted things at 13 early in the second.

Then the wheels fell off in mystifying fashion.

Coupeville’s defense went AWOL (though four Port Townsend treys didn’t help) and the Wolves shooting touch evaporated in horrifying fashion.

For anyone who went out to buy a hotdog at 13-13, coming back to find the RedHawks up 32-16 at the break was the kind of surprise which would make a person wonder if the scoreboard operator was pulling a (very early) April Fools trick on everyone.

Things got moderately better in the third, with Toomey-Stout throwing down all seven of Coupeville’s points, then took a decided turn for the better in the fourth.

The pivotal moment came when Ulrik Wells held his ground in the paint and soundly rejected a RedHawk shot.

That seemed to spark something deep inside his Coupeville teammates, and they promptly went on a 14-2 run to slice a 25-point deficit down to 13.

Four different Wolves (Toomey-Stout, Grove, Wells and Gavin Knoblich) scored during the run, with half the baskets coming off of offensive rebounds.

The late run put the skip back in Van Velkinburgh’s step, the roar back in the throats of Wolf fans, and bodes well for the all-freshman JV squad.

Grove finished with eight points to back Toomey-Stout’s 19, while Jered Brown and Knoblich each dropped in four.

Wells added a bucket on a nice move in the paint, while Nikolai Lyngra and Tucker Hall rounded out the Wolf roster.