Longtime Coupeville tennis guru Ken Stange won’t have a chance to coach this fall. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
The rackets remain unstrung, and the courts are empty.
Coupeville High School has cancelled its boys tennis season due to a lack of players, Athletic Director Willie Smith confirmed Thursday afternoon.
It will be the third-straight non-season for the Wolf netters, as the program has been beset from all sides.
Friday Harbor, which was Coupeville’s most reliable tennis opponent, cancelled its fall sports programs at the height of the pandemic.
During that lost season, many Wolf tennis players migrated to soccer, helping save that program from its own cancellation.
The biggest stumbling block for the netters might simply be Coupeville’s move back to the 2B classification in 2020.
At the 1A level, boys soccer is played in the spring. In 2B, those booters join the girls in playing their season in the fall.
With football, cross country, tennis, and soccer all vying for male athletes in the same season at a small school, someone is likely to lose out.
So far, that’s been tennis.
Coupeville is the only one of seven schools in the Northwest 2B/1B League attempting to field four male sports teams in the fall.
The other NWL schools offer:
Friday Harbor — tennis, football, soccer
La Conner — cross country, football, soccer
Concrete — football, cross country
Mount Vernon Christian — cross country, soccer
Orcas Island — cross country, soccer
Darrington — football
While boys tennis sits idle, girls tennis remains strong, and the CHS courts should once again be filled with aces and overheads next spring.
Coupeville Sports 
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