Coupeville Sports

Coupeville sophomore Gwen Gustafson scored her first varsity point Tuesday night. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

It was a tough way to kick off a new season.

With a very young roster, including two middle school-aged players, the Coupeville High School varsity girls basketball squad had trouble keeping up with one of the dominant hoops programs in its new league.

Mount Vernon Christian has played 23 games at the state tourney over the past seven seasons, bringing home top-six banners four times.

So it wasn’t too much of a surprise that the Hurricanes battered the Wolves Tuesday night in both team’s season openers, winning 54-14 on their home floor.

For second-year CHS coach Scott Fox, who lost five of his top seven scorers from a season ago, it was a rough, but maybe necessary learning lesson.

“It wasn’t pretty, but we now know the areas to improve on,” he said.

“There’s a reason MVC has gone to the state tournament often and it starts with their aggression,” Fox added. “We showed our youth tonight and there were times two 8th graders were in the lineup.”

Those CMS students, Lyla Stuurmans and Savina Wells, became the first middle school athletes to play in a CHS varsity girls basketball game, and they represent a bright future for Wolf hoops — just one which will have to learn under fire.

One of the team’s few returning veterans, junior Audrianna Shaw, led Coupeville on opening night, pounding away for a team-high eight points.

“Audri was our bright spot,” Fox said.

She was joined in the scoring column by Maddie Georges, who knocked down three points, Izzy Wells, who banked in a bucket, and Gwen Gustafson, who drained a free throw.

Gustafson, making her varsity hoops debut, becomes the 230th Wolf girl to score since the program began in 1974, and the second in her immediate family.

Big sis Amanda Fabrizi, a 2014 grad, is #36 on the all-time CHS girls scoring chart, having scorched the nets for 299 points in her prep career.

Ja’Kenya Hoskins

Tuesday’s game also marked the return of Ja’Kenya Hoskins.

After playing on varsity as a freshman, she missed her entire sophomore campaign thanks to a busted ankle suffered during a school dodgeball tourney.

Hoskins, an absolute ray of sunshine in the world, even if she’s too young to know what Videoville was, deserves all the praise for maintaining a supremely-positive attitude during her down time.

Ja’Kenya is a wrecking ball on the court, and pure class off it, and everything is at least a little bit better knowing her family gets to watch her play her favorite sport again.

No JV Game:

MVC doesn’t have a second squad this season, so Coupeville’s JV will make its debut Thursday at home against Orcas Island.