Coupeville Sports

With no CHS girls’ soccer program last year, Brynn Parker suited up and played with the Wolf boys. (Jackie Saia photo)

They were close.

Despite a late rally, not enough girls signed up for soccer to revive the shuttered Coupeville High School pitch program.

Even with 8th graders eligible to play, the Wolves narrowly missed out on hitting the figure administrators and coaches needed to see, and the program will go dormant for a second straight season.

All girls who wish to join the CHS boys’ program can do so, however, creating a co-ed team again.

Five of the seven schools in the Northwest 2B/1B League play boys’ soccer, with four other schools — Lopez Island, Providence Classical Christian, Grace Academy, and CPC-Lynnwood — joining the NWL for that one sport.

Coupeville likely won’t be the only co-ed team, as several of its rivals are in a similar place with no girls’ program and have featured mixed rosters in past years.

CHS, which originally sent players to join the Oak Harbor High School team in the ’90s, launched its own girls pitch program in 2004, and had played 19 consecutive seasons through 2022.

The Wolf booters survived the pandemic, but dwindling numbers curtailed the 2023 campaign before it began.

Now, a 16-game season which was set to begin Sept. 11 with a road game at Auburn Adventist Academy has been scrubbed as well.

Former Wolf booter Kimberly Kisch was hired to coach the Wolf girls prior to the 2023 season but has yet to get a chance to lead her own team onto the pitch.

She will once again join CHS boys’ coach Robert Wood to guide the co-ed squad.

That group travels to Auburn Sept. 11, then plays four of its next five games at home.