Coupeville Sports

Davin Houston slices ‘n dices the defense. (Jackie Saia photo)

They saved the best for last.

Capping a long day of hoops far from home Saturday, the Coupeville High School varsity boys’ basketball squad stormed from behind late to topple host Morton-White Pass 47-41.

The non-conference win gives the Wolves back-to-back victories for the first time this season and lifts them to 3-5 heading into an important week.

Brad Sherman’s squad has two Northwest 2B/1B League clashes on the schedule, hosting Friday Harbor Tuesday before traveling to La Conner Friday.

With those two teams a combined 0-19 on the season, the time is ripe for the Wolves to take care of business and get a true hot streak going.

Saturday’s game was a nice gut check for Coupeville, and it passed the test.

Missing three players, including #2 scorer Camden Glover, the Wolves spent a lot of time sitting as they waited for their game, the fourth of the day, to tip off.

Once on the floor, that showed a bit, as CHS fell behind 11-5 at the first break.

Second-quarter three-balls from Riley Lawless and Aiden O’Neill kept the Wolves close, within 20-13 at the half, before things began to change in the second half.

That was when senior Chase Anderson caught fire, throwing down 20 of his game-high 26 points to fuel the comeback.

Coupeville cut the deficit down to a single point at 30-29 heading into the fourth, then put the game away with a 18-11 surge across the final eight minutes.

Anderson dropped in 11 of his points in the fourth, including hitting six of seven free throws to ice the win.

While the Wolves didn’t set any records at the charity stripe, hitting just 50% of their shots at 12-24, they got there a whole lot more than MWP, which was just 4-6 on freebies.

CHS also won the three-ball war 5-3, with Anderson and Davin Houston joining Lawless and O’Neill in torching the net.

While Anderson’s 26 provided the bulk of the offense, Coupeville spread out its other 21 points between six players, with Lawless (5), Houston (5), O’Neill (4), Carson Grove (4), Malachi Somes (2), and Easton Green (1) scoring.

Liam Blas rounded out Sherman’s rotation, providing strong work on the defensive side of the ball.

Chase Anderson (20) and Hawthorne Wolfe compare their career scoring totals. (Julie Wheat photo)

With his 26 points, Anderson moves from #22 to #19 on the Wolf boys’ career scoring chart, which was launched back in 1917.

He has 735 points and counting, passing Tom Sahli (719), Dan Nieder (729), and Steve Whitney (730) Saturday, with Hunter Hammer (755), Barry Brown (769), Jack Elzinga (770), and Hawthorne Wolfe (800) next up.

Though, as I always like to point out, Sahli — the only Coupeville grad to play against NBA Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor in college — is still being shortchanged.

His 719 points reflect his junior and senior seasons at CHS, but his scoring totals from his sophomore season are still AWOL, with the missing scorebook from the 1951-1952 season being my personal holy grail.