Coupeville Sports

   Senior Jake Hoagland will be a key target for Wolf QB Hunter Downes as he chases school passing records. (John Fisken photos)

Senior Julian Welling returns to anchor the CHS lines.

   Wolf junior Matt Hilborn will share carries with Sean Toomey-Stout and Chris Battaglia.

Play for the postseason.

That’s the goal for the Coupeville High School football team, which wants to shed recent history and make a run at the playoffs.

“Our team goal is to play an 11th game,” said CHS coach Jon Atkins. “If we do that, we will have made many of our other goals on the way.”

To reach the postseason, the Wolves need to finish in the top two in the eight-team Olympic/Nisqually League.

With defending league champ Cascade Christian “returning basically every player for a team that went 10-0 last year heading into the playoffs,” it’s likely the other seven schools will be waging war for the #2 seed.

Last year that playoff berth went to Port Townsend, but the RedHawks took substantial hits in the off-season.

Quarterback Berkley Hill, the league’s top offensive player, graduated, then Detrius Kelsall, a three-year two-way starter who was expected to be the focal point of the offense in 2017, suddenly moved to California.

Still, the RedHawks have talent, especially sophomore Noa Montaya, a defensive whiz kid who inherits the QB job, and won’t go down without a fight.

Klahowya also took a big hit thanks to graduation, while Coupeville returns almost all of its primary weapons.

Last year, in the first year of a two-year trial period for mashing together the four-team Olympic and Nisqually Leagues for football, the Wolves finished 3-7 overall, 2-5 in league play.

CHS beat South Whidbey in non-conference play, whacked Vashon Island and Chimacum inside the league and came within a single play of unseating Charles Wright Academy and Bellevue Christian.

As the Wolves seek their first winning record since 2005, they have a favorable schedule.

Six of their 10 games are on Whidbey — five home games, including three of the final four, and the season opener vs. South Whidbey at Langley — and they don’t play Cascade Christian until the final game of the regular season.

With many of the league’s teams unsettled a bit, opportunity is there.

“I think that both Bellevue Christian and Charles Wright are looking to turn the corner and Port Townsend is always a tough match-up,” Atkins said. “The league is going to look very different than last year with the graduation of a lot of seniors in other programs. So it should be a fun season.”

Coupeville’s strengths should be its passing attack and defensive backfield, where the team boasts a pack of veterans with extensive varsity experience.

Senior quarterback Hunter Downes is back under center after a strong junior campaign.

Avoiding the injuries which derailed his sophomore season, Downes threw for 1,569 yards (#5 among 1A QB’s) and 17 touchdowns, one off of the school single-season mark.

Heading into his final year at the controls of the Wolf offense, he sits 1,773 yards and 16 TD’s from breaking the school career records, which are held by Coupeville’s Offensive Coordinator, Brad Sherman.

Downes top two targets in 2016 are also back, as Hunter Smith (49 receptions for school single-season records of 916 yards and 11 TD’s) and Cameron Toomey-Stout (21-441) return for their senior seasons.

Toss in speed demon sophomore Sean Toomey-Stout (2-52), steady senior Jake Hoagland (2-17) and junior Chris Battaglia (1-9), and Coupeville returns five of the eight players to have at least one catch last year.

Smith, who already owns at least a part of four CHS football game or season records, sits just 11 yards and five TD’s from moving past ’80s star Chad Gale to become the school’s career leader in those categories.

It could be a season of milestones for Smith, as he’s also just three interceptions away from passing Josh Bayne for that career mark.

When Downes isn’t pegging passes to his receivers, he’ll be handing the ball off to the three-headed beast of junior Matt Hilborn, Sean Toomey-Stout and Battaglia.

Opening holes for them will be a line anchored by senior Julian Welling and juniors Dane Lucero and Jake Pease.

Younger players who Atkins expects to step up include sophomores Trevor Bell, Gavin Knoblich and Andrew Martin, as well as junior Shane Losey, who “looks good returning from a shoulder injury on the defensive side of the ball.”

With its veteran players in place, Coupeville is primed to have a potent offense.

“Returning Hunter Downes, Cameron and Hunter Smith is going to make it difficult for teams to take just one weapon away,” Atkins said. “We just have to take care of the ball better and minimize mistakes on offense.”

The key to the team’s success and its playoff hopes will largely hinge on the defensive side of the ball, a weak point in many ways for Coupeville last season.

“Defensively we have to be better at making the first tackle and not giving opposing teams extra opportunities for yards,” Atkins said. “We gave up just over 30 points a game last year and for us to make our goals we have to improve on this area to get to an 11th game.”