Coupeville Sports

Chris Cernick, who has crashed the boards hard all season, knocked down eight points Monday in a rumble with Oak Harbor. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Bringing defensive heat, Wolf bangers (l to r) Ben Smith, Cernick and Miles Davidson fouled out Monday, but left a trail of destruction in their wake. (Deb Smith photo)

Success on the basketball court is about more than just wins and losses.

For a young, wildly-inexperienced team, improvement, dedication and fire in the belly tells a coach a lot.

Which is why Scott Fox, a hoops veteran pulling his first tour of duty at Coupeville High School, was all smiles after his boys C-Team fell Monday in a tightly-contested game with visiting 3A Oak Harbor.

“You look back to when we started this in November, and we’ve come a long way,” he said. “These kids have bought in to what we want to do. We’ll still make some mistakes, sure, but not like in the beginning.

“I’m proud of what they have given me,” Fox added. “It’s fun to coach kids when they like to be coached.”

While Coupeville ultimately lost 41-30 Monday, it was a marked change from the first time the two schools met back in the season-opener.

That game was a blowout. This one was anything but.

This time around, the Wolves struck first, hung tough in the late going, and never lost focus even after whistle-happy refs fouled out almost half Coupeville’s roster.

By the time the final buzzer sounded, three of eight Wolves (Chris Cernick, Miles Davidson, and Ben Smith) had been sent to the bench for good, while several other teammates were close to joining them.

Invoking memories of ’80s NBA basketball (when pretty-boy three-ball shooters frequently had their chins massaged by flying elbows), the Wolf defenders left a trail of tears (and possibly some rattled teeth).

Oak Harbor seemed a bit shaken by the mosh pit in the paint, failing to take advantage of a huge lead in free throw attempts.

Dropping in just 12 of 38 tries from the charity stripe (a meager 31.5% “success” rate), the Wildcats left the door open for Coupeville.

And, while the Wolves couldn’t quite get all the way home (10 missed free throws of their own didn’t help), they did push their big city rivals up and down the floor.

Keying things was the springy speedster, Jaylen Nitta, who threw down three of the first four buckets of the night on his way to a team-high 17 points.

Strong enough to hold on to the ball under extreme pressure, and quick enough to break the OHHS press on his own most times, Nitta was in full-on wheel-and-deal mode, and he got some help from the bangers inside.

Cernick, a first-year hoops player whose game has improved by leaps and bounds, continued his emergence as a rebounder to watch.

Whether out-leaping his foes, or using his long arms to pluck the ball from the air right as it came off the glass, he was also able to take several offensive rebounds right back up for put-backs.

That brought an especially big smile to the face of Fox, since he works with all of Coupeville’s big men — varsity, JV and C-Team — and is seeing his work pay off with an increase in toughness from his charges.

Coupeville pulled out to a 6-3 lead in the early going, with Nitta’s buckets punctuated by Cernick rising up and swatting a ‘Cat shot into the cheap seats, before the Wolves settled for an 8-8 tie at the first break.

The second quarter was the one frame in which the Wolves cracked, at least for a bit, and it would ultimately deny them the win.

Take away Oak Harbor’s 12-3 advantage across the second eight-minute span, and the game would have been 29-27.

But, even after falling behind, the Wolves made charges to kick-off both the third and fourth quarters.

Two buckets from Cernick, packaged around a pair of free throws from Jonathan Partida, cut the lead back to 22-17 early in the second half.

Then, after seeing its deficit grow to 11 by the end of the third, CHS struck hard to launch the fourth quarter.

Nitta whistled home a three-ball on the move to start things, before he picked the pocket of a Wildcat ball-handler and went coast to coast for a layup.

Back within 28-22, Coupeville had its momentum blunted by the frequent bleat of a ref’s whistle after that, as the fourth quarter became a foul-strewn death march.

The Wolves, having already lost one interior player, watched two more go to the bench permanently in the fourth as they tried to stop one sturdily-built, surprisingly-nimble Oak Harbor football player in particular.

Unable to get enough momentum going to stop the impending loss, the Wolves continued to scrap, however.

Andrew Aparicio, Brayden Coatney, and Tony Garcia fortified the CHS defense, all coming up with big hustle plays, while Smith was busy slappin’ fools upside the head all the way until the refs sent him away.

Even with just a few ticks left on the clock, the Wolves managed to draw a technical foul after baiting Oak Harbor into getting too close on inbound plays twice. For a team learning as it goes, solid evidence the work is paying off.

Nitta, who capped his night by swishing a free throw off the tech, finished with 17, while Cernick banked in eight and Partida rippled the nets for five.