Coupeville Sports

   Kyle Rockwell was one of seven Wolves to score in Friday night’s JV game. (John Fisken photo)

The score was deceptive.

Walk into the gym in the final seconds Friday and you would have seen the Coupeville High School JV boys’ basketball squad lost 52-43 to visiting Port Townsend.

Arrive a bit earlier and you would have been front and center for a back-and-forth affair where the Wolves came within one missed shot of having a chance to tie or win at the very end.

Closing on a 6-2 run, with buckets from Jacobi Pacquette-Pilgrim, Koa Davison and Sean Toomey-Stout, Coupeville was within four with the ball in its hands in the final minute.

Unfortunately, the Wolves then hit their only sustained shooting slump of the night, and the RedHawks took advantage to stretch out the final deficit.

The loss drops the CHS young guns to 7-7 overall, 2-4 in Olympic League play.

Coupeville controlled the game for much of the first half, with Toomey-Stout dropping in 10 of his team-high 14 points along the way.

He scored on a variety of moves, with back-to-back buckets in the second quarter that drew some oohs and ahs from the fans in the stands.

On the first play, Toomey-Stout slashed to the hoop without the ball, hopped into the air, caught a bullet pass, then drilled the soft jumper before heading back down to Earth.

Very next trip down the floor he was back at it.

A pesky RedHawk defender jarred the ball loose as he tried to set up a play, so Toomey-Stout whirled, snatched the loose ball from behind his back, then spun and left the Port Townsend player flatfooted as he flew by him for a layup.

Holding on to a one-point lead, the Wolves put a cap on the half with a team-wide display of defensive aggressiveness.

Port Townsend had the ball with 16 ticks on the clock, but under extreme pressure from all five Wolves, failed to get a shot off before the halftime buzzer sounded.

Mason Grove drilled back-to-back three-balls to kick off the second half, and the two teams traded the lead back and forth through much of the final 16 minutes.

A huge RedHawk trey as the shot clock threatened to run out midway through the fourth was tough to overcome for the Wolves, but they fought back behind Davison.

He dropped a sweet mini-hook that evoked memories of Magic Johnson pulling off a Kareem tribute in the 1987 NBA Finals (look it up on Wikipedia, kids…), then banked home a loose ball that he plucked from a rival.

Seven Wolves scored, with Toomey-Stout’s 14 backed up by nine from Grove and eight from Jered Brown.

Branden Newhard (5), Davison (4), Pacquette-Pilgrim (2) and Kyle Rockwell (1) also tickled the twines, while Gavin Knoblich, Ulrik Wells, Nikolai Lyngra, Elliott Johnson, Tucker Hall, Jean Lund-Olsen and Ariah Bepler all saw floor time.