Coupeville High School seniors (left to right) Capri Anter, Haylee Armstrong, and Lexis Drake led their team to a big win Tuesday night. (Photos courtesy Scout Smith)
The Wolves are peaking at the right time.
Winning for the seventh time in its last 10 matches, the Coupeville High School varsity volleyball squad swept visiting Friday Harbor off the floor in straight sets Tuesday night.
Pulling off a hard-fought 25-21, 26-24, 25-23 victory on Senior Night, Scout Smith’s kill-happy crew finishes 6-4 in Northwest 2B/1B League play while getting to 8-7 overall.
With the regular season in the rearview mirror, up next for the Wolves is the District 1/2 tourney, which runs November 2-5.
That royal rumble will feature four teams from Coupeville’s District 1 and three from District 2, with two teams punching tickets to state.
While CHS finished third in the seven-team NWL, conference champ Darrington is a 1B school and heads off on a different postseason path.
While nothing is 100% set in stone until tourney officials fill in the bracket, it appears Coupeville will be the #2 playoff seed among 2B schools from District 1, behind Mount Vernon Christian, and will host its playoff opener.
You can see the (so far empty) bracket here:
For now, the Wolves can bask in the afterglow of a furious finale, with seniors Lexis Drake, Haylee Armstrong, and Capri Anter closing their regular season run as victors.
It took a bit of waiting, however, as a combination of ferry and bus issues had Friday Harbor arriving almost an hour late.
Wolf fans, many of them drenched by a sudden assault of liquid sunshine from Mother Nature, got their money’s worth, however.
The match opened on a fairly spectacular point, with Armstrong saving a ball trapped in the net, setting up rampaging freshman Rhylee Inman for a kill which tore a chunk off the backline.
With Anter following with a strong run at the service line, Coupeville bolted out to a 5-1 lead and held the advantage for much of the first set.
Ari Cunningham was spraying kills from every angle, Willow Leedy-Bonifas was firing BBs on her serve, and Tenley Stuurmans was a flippin’ wizard, flicking winners where the bodies weren’t, and everything was peachy.
Until Friday Harbor, which has several big boppers, got on a run of its own, forcing a 19-19 tie.
Unwilling to bend, the Wolves immediately reclaimed the lead with Stuurmans bounding in the air for a tip winner which froze the defense, followed by Cunningham dropping an ace which exploded right at the feet of a perplexed rival.
Friday Harbor held off a set point, thanks to complaining until a call was overturned, but promptly airmailed a serve that was still rising as it flew out the gym door to seal set #1 for Coupeville.
The second frame belonged to Inman, who busted things open with an eight-point run on her serve to stake the Wolves to a quick 11-2 lead.
She got some help from her older teammates, with Cunningham almost tearing her rotator cuff on a powerhouse kill where the volleyball started crying after it was smashed, and Drake slicing ‘n dicing the defense with a couple of lasers at the net.
Fab frosh Zariyah Allen joined the kill-kill-kill assault on the Wolverines, and Coupeville looked like it was running away with things, up 22-14.
Then, a momentary glitch.
Friday Harbor got all the way back, for a quick moment at least, forcing a 23-23 tie and requiring the Wolves to dig deep.
Which they did, as Cunningham spun a tip winner into a very small gap, before Drake delivered a mighty mash of a winner to put an exclamation point on the set.
Up two sets to none, the Wolves took control in the final frame and never let go, starting with torrid service runs from Stuurmans, Inman, and Armstrong, while Inman made life tough on Friday Harbor’s big hitters, rising up to stuff the Wolverines best shots.
Everything was working for Coupeville, from Leedy-Bonifas literally punching the life out of the volleyball on a one-handed winner, while Stuurmans went to the ceiling to deliver a screaming kill which set the Wolverines way back on their heels.
The visitors stayed close but could not force a late tie this time around.
Though their coach did draw a yellow card for (likely) talking smack to the refs, which was entertaining for at least part of the audience.
In the end, with the set and the match waiting to be claimed, Stuurmans delivered her 10,097th highlight of the season, spinning an elegant tip away from the defense to seal the victory and send the Wolves on to the postseason.
Tuesday stats:
Zariyah Allen – 2 kills, 1 dig, 1 block assist
Capri Anter — 5 digs, 4 aces
Haylee Armstrong — 2 digs, 3 assists
Arianna Cunningham — 8 kills, 1 dig, 2 aces
Lexis Drake — 4 kills, 1 dig, 1 solo block
Rhylee Inman — 1 kill, 3 digs, 2 block assists, 2 aces
Willow Leedy-Bonifas — 12 digs, 1 assist
Kennedy O’Neill — 2 digs, 1 block assist
Tenley Stuurmans — 6 kills, 5 digs, 11 assists
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