Grady Rickner tossed in a team-high 12 points Thursday as Coupeville clobbered Concrete, clinching its first winning boys basketball season in more than a decade. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
One part of the mission, accomplished.
Laying waste to winless Concrete on the road Thursday, the Coupeville High School varsity boys basketball squad clinched its first winning season in more than a decade.
With the 64-14 rout of the Lions, the Wolves improve to 7-4 and head home for their season finale next Tuesday, June 15 against Darrington.
That night, they’ll honor seniors Daniel Olson, TJ Rickner, and Sage Downes, then try to close a pandemic-altered season with one final big win.
The last time the CHS varsity boys hoops program posted a winning record was the 2009-2010 season, when the Wolves went 16-5 in the next-to-last season of Randy King’s 20-year run as head coach.
Thursday’s tilt was a gut-check for Coupeville, coming off a heartbreaking one-point loss in overtime to Friday Harbor Tuesday, a defeat which ended Wolf hopes of winning the Northwest 2B/1B League title.
How would CHS respond, facing a rebuilding Concrete squad which went into its finale carrying an 0-11 record?
The answer? Pretty dang well.
CHS coach Brad Sherman, the #2 scorer on the last Wolf boys team to win a league title in 2002, got floor time for all 12 guys in uniform Thursday, with 10 of them scoring.
The lone Wolf not to see action was sophomore sparkplug Alex Murdy, out with an injury.
Much like the first time these two squads faced off, Coupeville jumped on the Lions quickly, built a substantial lead by halftime, then gave its bench a chance to rack up major minutes after the break.
Up 24-4 after one quarter, with Hawthorne Wolfe, Logan Downes, and Grady Rickner each tossing in six points, CHS pushed the margin to 48-8 with an almost mirror-image second frame.
From there, a running clock ended things quickly, with all of the scoring coming from the Wolf bench.
Sage Downes was a force on both ends of the floor.
Junior captain Grady Rickner finished with a game-high 12 points, while Coupeville’s top two scorers this season — Wolfe and Xavier Murdy — did more passing than shooting en route to a combined 10 points.
Seven of those came from Hawk, and all in the very early going, as he eased into another milestone in his journey up the CHS boys career scoring chart.
Wolfe’s last point of the night, coming off of a free throw in the second quarter, gives him 650 points and counting.
He’s #27 all-time heading into the finale of his shortened junior season, a mere 10 points away from hurdling Jason McFadyen (654), Wade Ellsworth (659), and Pat Bennett (659) on a list which covers 104 seasons.
Two current sharpshooters — Sage Downes and Jonathan Valenzuela — popped for eight points apiece Thursday, with Olson and Wolfe banking in seven each.
Freshman Logan Downes lets it fly.
Logan Downes (5), Cody Roberts (4), TJ Rickner (4), Miles Davidson (4), Xavier Murdy (3), and Logan Martin (2) also scored, with Cole White contributing on defense.
Davidson, who has been sidelined by a football injury for much of the season, made his debut, while becoming the 401st CHS boy I’ve been able to document scoring in a varsity hoops game.
Coupeville Sports 
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