Audrianna Shaw knocked down an especially impressive bucket Tuesday, but the Coupeville JV couldn’t hold off Granite Falls. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
No excuses, ever.
Despite playing basically four players down Tuesday, the Coupeville High School JV girls basketball team fought visiting Granite Falls from the opening tip to the final buzzer.
But, with two of its top players limited to a single quarter of action, and two more in street clothes, the Wolves suffered a third-quarter let-down and fell 33-20.
The loss, which largely hinged on an 11-2 run by Granite coming out of halftime, drops Coupeville to 3-2 in North Sound Conference play, 6-6 overall.
The Wolves were without the injured Abby Mulholland and Kylie Chernikoff, while starters Izzy Wells and Ja’Kenya Hoskins only made brief cameos so they could remain eligible for extended duty in the varsity game.
That forced CHS coach Amy King to shuffle her roster, and she did, patching together a variety of lineups, while giving Morgan Stevens her first career start.
The high-energy freshman brought a nice intensity to the defensive side of the ball, as did her fellow hustlers like Lily Leedy and Alana Mihill.
Much of Coupeville’s offense came courtesy Anya Leavell, who knocked down eight points with a variety of sweet moves.
She went coast to coast for one bucket, had a pair of baskets on plays where she rolled hard to the hoop, lofting the ball up and over her defender’s fingertips, then capped things with a pull-up jumper.
The game’s best bucket came from Audrianna Shaw, who threw down a wicked mini-hook shot on the move, slicing off a chunk of the backboard before finding pay-dirt.
With the game tied 6-6 after one quarter, Coupeville said farewell to Hoskins. Then, trailing just 18-16 at the half, it was time to bid adieu to Wells.
That gave Granite a chance to bang the ball inside to its big players — one Tiger was six-foot in her socks and camped out all game right beneath the rim — and use a power game to pull away.
The game took a nasty turn in the final moments when Wolf guard Kiara Contreras was launched skyward during a battle for a rebound, before landing hard, smacking her head on the floor.
To their credit, the Tigers, to a player, came over after the game to check on the scrappy CHS ball-hawk, with the Granite player who inadvertently yanked Contreras off her feet offering profuse apologies.
Leavell’s eight points paced the Wolf scoring attack, with Shaw (4), Mollie Bailey (2), Contreras (2), Wells (2), and Hoskins (2) also scoring.
Kylie Van Velkinburgh played strongly on defense, rising up to reject a Tiger shot while the game was still a one-score affair.
Coupeville Sports 
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