Xavier Murdy was a wild man on both ends of the floor Thursday as Coupeville battled Orcas Island. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
You love to see it.
Xavier Murdy scrambling to get back and draw a charging foul when the game was already lost.
Murdy, fighting his way through three rivals to haul in one of his 14 rebounds, again long after the game was decided.
Hawthorne Wolfe, coming off a 20-point performance but not happy with the end result, keeping the lights on in the gym long after the game, putting up shot after shot, only occasionally stopping to argue with the machine feeding him the ball.
It would have been easy for the Coupeville High School varsity boys basketball players to have hung their heads Thursday after falling 70-53 to visiting Orcas Island.
That they didn’t, and that they actually carved their deficit in half by the final buzzer, are strong signs for a team which sits at 1-1 on the young season.
Swamped by a second-quarter monsoon in which the Vikings rained down 34 points while seemingly never missing a shot, the Wolves lost an early lead.
And it got worse from there, with Coupeville trailing by almost five touchdowns early in the fourth quarter, while playing a sport where you can’t get seven points back on one play.
Yet the Wolves kept fighting, closed the game on a 17-0 run, and are already circling the June 5 rematch on the calendar.
“I am eager to play them again,” said CHS coach Brad Sherman. “I think we match up very well with them.
“Teams make runs, and they certainly did today. We just have to be mentally tough and be better at stopping those runs.”
The game started with two fairly evenly-matched teams exchanging the lead as the first quarter played out.
Xavier Murdy crashed to the basket hard for a pair of buckets, Wolfe put up a quick seven points on a variety of moves, and X-Man’s younger brother capped things off.
Slashing through the backpedaling defense, Alex Murdy skipped a layup off the glass right before the buzzer to stake Coupeville to a 17-15 lead at the first break.
There were no fans in the stands to get the joint rockin’, but the Wolves, bouncing and barking enthusiastically at each other, made up for it.
And they were right there, at 20-20, after Wolfe hit a runner while hanging in the air long after his defender had retreated to the surly bonds of Earth.
But then the bottom fell out.
The bottom of the net Orcas was shooting at, to be precise, as the Vikings locked on and unloaded, with a 29-5 run to close the second quarter horrifying in its precision.
Everything was going in for the visitors, whether it be long bombs (they outshot Coupeville 10-2 on three-balls, 5-0 in the first half), offensive rebounds put back up and in, or pull-up jumpers on the move.
The exact opposite was happening for Coupeville, as shot after shot rolled around the rim, took a weird last-second skip, or simply popped back up and out.
Other than a couple of free throws, the only Wolf bucket in the last six minutes of the half came on a roll to the hoop by freshman Logan Downes.
Trailing 49-25 at the break, Coupeville got back into a partial groove in the third, then finished strongly in the fourth.
“I love how our guys responded in the second half,” Sherman said. “Certainly, give a lot of credit to Orcas and how they shot the ball, but we never gave in.
“Having things like Xavier crashing the offensive boards hard down 25 is a very positive sign.”
X-Man got his JV counterparts in the stands to get rowdy when he elevated down deep and rejected an Orcas shot, while the Downes brothers hooked up for a nice scoring play.
Sage, a senior, corralled a loose ball, then flipped a pass to Logan, a freshman, who crashed through the defense for a layup in a game in which both brothers scored their first varsity points, uniting them with older brother Hunter on the career scoring chart.
It was a good game to become a made man, as TJ Rickner and Cody Roberts joined Downes brothers #2 and #3, also notching the first varsity points of their prep career.
The tenth and final Orcas trey, very early in the final frame, pushed the margin out to 70-36, but then the Wolves clamped down on both ends of the floor.
Forcing turnovers and hitting the boards with abandon, Coupeville closed with intensity and passion, and another Downes-to-Downes basket.
This time, the assist went to Logan, and the bucket to Sage, proving the duo can share and share alike.
Wolfe finished with a team-high 20 points, but Orcas countered with a nasty one-two combo of Tomas Holmes and Diego Lago, who went for 37 and 20, respectively, while combining to hit all 10 Vikings three-balls.
Logan Downes and Grady Rickner each banked home seven points for the Wolves, with Xavier Murdy (5), Sage Downes (4), and Alex Murdy (3) chipping in to the effort.
Roberts (2), Daniel Olson (2), Logan Martin (2), and TJ Rickner (1) also scored, while freshman Cole White played aggressive defense.
Coupeville gets a chance to bounce right back, traveling to Friday Harbor for a Saturday afternoon rumble between two 1-1 teams.
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