Coupeville Sports

Dominic Coffman scored a touchdown and recovered a fumble in Coupeville’s opening win. (Photo courtesy Brent Coffman)

It started as a way to keep the peace.

When Coupeville High School and next-door neighbor South Whidbey clash on the gridiron, the winner walks away with The Bucket, a trophy created in 2008.

Ownership of the memento, which features the colors and logos for both the Wolves and Falcons, is a hotly contested affair.

In fact, one side of the trophy has a visible crunch on it, thanks to a losing coach who didn’t accept defeat with as much grace as they might have liked.

Along with getting to keep The Bucket, the winner inherits the right to deliver righteous smack talk, of course.

The latest clash between the Whidbey rivals arrives this Friday, Sept. 9, when Coupeville plays host to a match-up between undefeated teams.

Kick-off is 7 PM, and both the 2B Wolves and 1A Falcons enter the non-conference game with 1-0 records.

Coupeville beat Klahowya 41-21 on opening night, while South Whidbey drilled Friday Harbor 34-14.

For those who can’t be in town, the NFHS Network, which charges a fee, will stream the game at https://www.nfhsnetwork.com/.

And The Bucket?

It was the brainchild of two administrators looking for a positive outcome to a tense situation.

Senior captains (left to right) Uriel Liquidano, Jacob Martin, and Clay Reilly celebrate a rivalry game win in 2016. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Coupeville Athletic Director Willie Smith explains how it all began:

Ha ha … well, during a volleyball game at home against SW, one of our senior boys didn’t appreciate the cheering going on by the SW crowd.

So, this young man decided, erroneously and very immaturely, to take matters into his own hands.

He procured a licorice bucket, filled it with water, and proceeded to dump it on the SW crowd, who then chased him out of the gym and very nearly got into a brawl.

Said CHS student was suspended, and it almost got really ugly between the two schools.

So, John Patton (former SW AD) and myself decided to turn this negative event into a positive and came up with the idea to make the football game the “Bucket Game” and whomever won that game would keep the bucket for the year.

Thus, the annual Bucket Game began.

During the run of this blog, which launched in Aug. 2012, South Whidbey holds a 5-4 advantage, with no game being played in 2020 due to Covid.

The Wolves came out on top four times in six years between 2012-2017, with the Falcons now having won three straight games.

Results in the Coupeville Sports era:

2012 — CHS 18-13
2013 — SW 57-33
2014 — CHS 35-28
2015 — SW 27-14
2016 — CHS 41-10
2017 — CHS 18-0
2018 — SW 48-20
2019 — SW 35-7
2020 — No game
2021 — SW 33-7
2022 — ??

Summer workouts translate to fall success. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)