“I’ve got fighters, man!”

September 10, 2022 by David Svien

Josh Upchurch was a force on the line Friday as Coupeville battled South Whidbey. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

It would have been easy for Coupeville High School football coach Bennett Richter to be upset Friday night, having been gut-punched by the refs en route to seeing his team fall 47-28 to visiting South Whidbey.

Instead, showing the grit and upbeat nature you hope to see in a young coach, he chose to look past the horror show which was the group in striped shirts, instead focusing on how his players responded to things beyond their control.

“I don’t have guys who quit, and they didn’t stop working at all,” Richter said. “Even when we were down two to three scores at the end, they kept playing and believing we could come back.

“At the end of the day, we move on to the next game against Sultan, then focus on winning a league title,” he added.

“I have faith in our guys, and after the effort I saw tonight, I’m feeling confident.”

Friday’s non-conference win lifts 1A South Whidbey to 2-0 and allows the Falcons to retain possession of The Bucket after garnering their fourth-straight win in the Island rivalry.

Meanwhile, the 2B Wolves, who were coming off of an emotional road win over Klahowya, drop to 1-1.

The tussle between next-door neighbors, which played out in front of an overflow crowd at Coupeville’s Mickey Clark Field, was closer than the score might indicate.

South Whidbey punched in an otherwise meaningless touchdown with just 29 seconds to play to stretch the final margin, and Coupeville was still within a single score early in the second half.

Now, it’s true the refs didn’t decide the game by themselves.

Coupeville had more than its share of big defensive plays, but also suffered too many breakdowns in the secondary, allowing the Falcons to pull off a string of long scoring plays.

But it’s also true the zebras made one of the more mystifying calls in recent memory, changing the entire flow of the game, and altering everything which came after.

The play in question came right at the end of the first half, with Coupeville up 14-12.

South Whidbey had a third-and-eight on the Wolf 14 with nine slim seconds to go before halftime and fired a pass over the middle.

A Falcon receiver snagged the airborne ball, pushed forward once, twice, but was stopped short of the goal line as time ran out.

Which sent Coupeville to the locker room on a serious high, its defense having denied a team a score on the final play of the first half for the second-straight week.

Except…

South Whidbey coach Luke Hodson, magnificently pleading his case like a southern preacher working the revival tent circuit, kept talking until the refs caved and put one second back on the clock.

The rationale offered was the Falcons hadn’t scored, but had reached a first down, which momentarily stops the clock in high school play.

Except…

If the clock ran out before the play was whistled dead, which it most assuredly did, there’s no time to go back on the clock.

Unless the refs just start making up stuff on the spot.

Coupeville, already in the locker room, was called back to the field, and in the confusion South Whidbey slammed the ball in from short range, before adding a two-point conversion.

Instead of holding a lead with all the momentum on their side, the Wolves, and their fans, and their coaches, and even a couple of deer watching from the nearby woods, were left puzzled and pissed.

Give South Whidbey credit, though.

Handed a chance to change the game, the Falcons did, scoring on that “extra” last play of the first half, before Lucas Taksony took the second-half kickoff to the house, motoring down the left side of the field for a game-busting score.

Now trailing 28-14, Coupeville didn’t break, however.

Scott Hilborn, a two-way star who puts extra pop in every play.

Scott Hilborn, who was a wild man on both sides of the ball all night, busted off a 65-yard touchdown run two plays later to cut the lead back to one score.

Then the Wolf senior came flying downfield on the ensuing kickoff, slid past a Falcon who neglected to pick up the ball, and gave CHS possession of the ball.

With the Coupeville cheerleaders rockin’ the joint, and Wolf fans finally making PA announcer Willie Smith proud by hitting the high decibels, there was a legitimate chance to make it a whole new game.

Bam, bam, back-to-back touchdowns, a tie game, and we’re ready to all forget about the smell of rotten eggs coming off the refs.

Except…

It wasn’t meant to be, as the Falcons stiffened, stopped Coupeville on a fourth-down run inside the 15-yard line, then immediately pulled off a touchdown on a pitch-and-pass play which put the ball in Elijah Dixon’s hands.

The South Whidbey senior outran the Wolf defense on a play which covered a solid 90 yards, and Coupeville would spend the remainder of the game at least two scores behind.

The Wolves got a fourth-quarter touchdown, with quarterback Logan Downes plunging into the end zone with his line clearing running room.

But down 40-28, CHS came up short on a fourth-down pass play from the six-yard line and the Falcons were able to burn off much of the final seven minutes with strong up-the-gut runs.

Coupeville started the game off strongly. Literally from the first play.

Daylon Houston snagged the opening kickoff and brought it back 40+ yards, one missed tackle away from finding the end zone just seconds into the rivalry game.

Dominic Coffman and Hilborn softened the defense up with smash-mouth runs, before Downes connected with Tim Ursu on a pretty, pretty 20-yard touchdown pass to open the scoring.

Coupeville’s quarterback, scrambling madly to his right, stayed one step ahead of his would-be tacklers, then dropped a perfect lob over the defense.

Ursu made the catch over his shoulder, juking his defender into the cheap seats, before rumbling in to deafening cheers from his highly active fan club.

With Houston tacking on the PAT, Coupeville was up 7-0 and came close to breaking off several more big plays before the first quarter was done.

Houston had another epic kickoff return, this one for a touchdown, only to have the play wiped out by a penalty called on his blockers.

Two plays later, Downes and Ursu connected on a 35-yard pass play, but the ball came free at the end of the run thanks to a ferocious hit from behind, slowing Coupeville’s roll.

Trailing 12-7 after twice preventing the Falcons from pulling off two-point conversions, Coupeville reclaimed the lead midway through the second period.

Hilborn capped an 11-play, 52-yard, five-minute-plus drive, plunging in from two yards out.

That brought Wolf Nation to its collective feet, though things would get a little more surreal and a lot less happy after that.

Though, even as the clock ran down, Coupeville was still playing at full intensity.

Coffman delivered one memorable run in which he whirled right, then left, then right again, rumbling down the sideline, knocking defender after defender backwards.

The audible pop of his pads shredding tacklers, as his feet churned, carrying him ever downfield, still echoed as fans exited the stadium.

Coupeville also dropped some tasty licks on defense, with Hilborn spending much of the night delivering haymakers as he dragged down guys trying, and failing, to run away from his patch of the gridiron.

Josh Upchurch, back in Cow Town after a year away, delivered an extra-nasty takedown on South Whidbey’s quarterback at one point, while William Davidson made his presence felt, one booming tackle at a time.