Anya Leavell delivered her top performance of the season Monday, as Coupeville’s JV volleyball squad waged a war with King’s. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Taygin Jump was strong at the service line. (Brian Vick photo)
In one sense, they won. In another, they didn’t.
The Coupeville High School JV volleyball team came out scorching hot Monday, scared the crud out of visiting King’s, then fell in a three-set thriller.
But, while the final score of 12-25, 25-23, 25-19 went in favor of the Knights, the Wolves actually won more points on the night, coming out on top 67-62.
Yes, it’ll go down in the book as a loss, one which drops Coupeville’s second crew to a still perfectly-good 3-1 in North Sound Conference play, 5-2 overall.
But don’t think the Wolf young guns didn’t ruffle King’s, cause they certainly made the Knights coach turn a lovely shade of pink in the face as he had a spirited discussion with his players between sets.
It’s possibly because if he lost, the private school coach might have had to walk back to Shoreline.
I’m just saying, buses are for winners.
And, in the first set, the upstarts from Coupeville were taking a paddle to the richniks.
Wolf freshman Maddie Georges came out offering up serves which zipped over and around the King’s players outstretched hands, and things went from there.
Kylie Chernikoff, having herself quite the night, delivered a knee-shaking kill, then teammate Anya Leavell slid across the court and straight-up knifed the Knights, sticking the shiv in and twisting it.
On a play set up by a deadly Alita Blouin serve, Leavell ripped off a slicer which caught the very back end of the line, before skidding away out towards the road the King’s coach was contemplating having to walk home on.
Coupeville surged out to a double-digits lead in the first set, and never let the Knights recover.
At one point, the Wolves lashed three straight big-time kills, with Lucy Tenore swinging the hammer of the gods on a blast which sent her rivals running, before Chernikoff got downright nasty on back-to-back put-aways.
Whatever the King’s coach said to his players during the set break seemed to light a bit of a fire under their souls, as the second set was a war.
Coupeville continued to come up with huge plays, from Tenore skying above the net to stuff a shot, to Georges dropping a jump spike which caught the net and flopped over, to Taygin Jump zinging aces on her serve.
The second set saw nine ties, the last at 18-18, and the Wolves seemed on their way to a big win after a Chernikoff ace pushed CHS ahead 20-18.
But it wasn’t to be, as King’s surged on a 6-1 run, before Coupeville fought off two set points to pull back within 24-23.
For half a second, it looked like the Wolves would force yet another tie, but a spike which would have knotted things at 24-24 went an inch too far, and it was on to a third and deciding set.
Again, Coupeville played strongly, with Leavell and Chernikoff droppin’ spikes and Jump peppering the Knights with serves, as the Wolves forced nine more ties in the final frame.
King’s finally pulled ahead for good, however, and once it was up by five points, didn’t let the lead slip away.
The Wolves came strong until the end, with Tenore crushing a winner at the tail end of an epic rally in which both teams made great saves to keep the point going long after it should have ended.
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