Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Basketball’ Category

Royal rumble becomes big blowout

Posted in Basketball, Wolves in college, tagged , , , , , on January 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Makana Stone and Whitman are 12-1 after dismantling Willamette. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

One big test passed, one to go.

Paced by a 19-point, 8-rebound performance from Coupeville’s Makana Stone, the Whitman College women’s basketball team shredded visiting Willamette University 74-54 Saturday afternoon.

A matchup between two of the three previously undefeated teams in the Northwest Conference, it’s a huge boost for the Blues, who are ranked #12 in NCAA D-III play.

Now 4-0 in league, 12-1 overall, Whitman sits in a first-place tie with Pacific University (4-0, 10-3), a game up on Willamette (3-1, 9-4) atop the nine-team conference.

And that second big test? It arrives in six days.

The Blues travel to Oregon next weekend, hitting Forest Grove Friday and Newberg Saturday.

The first night will be a battle with Pacific for sole possession of first place, while the second pits Whitman against always-tough George Fox University.

Saturday’s showdown with Willamette, coming on “Bring A Girl to the Game Night,” left a ton of happy fans at the Sherwood Athletic Center in Walla Walla.

While the visiting Bearcats scored the first bucket of the game, after that it was all Whitman, all the time.

Stone helped kick off a 10-0 run by knocking down a jumper, then coming back around to make off with a steal and feed teammate Kaelan Shamseldin for an electric three-ball.

From there, the Blues never looked back and never slowed down, steadily stretching the lead out, quarter by quarter.

Up 24-12 at the first break, Whitman moved the margin to 43-24 at the half and 58-37 after three quarters of play.

Stone poured in points in all four quarters, and got plenty of backup as Mady Burdett popped for 16, Shamseldin rattled the rims for 10, and Kaylie McCracken just missed a double-double with nine points and nine rebounds.

Saturday’s performance continues a very-strong season for the former Wolf star.

On the year, Stone sit with 201 points, 110 rebounds, 16 assists, 18 steals, and 12 blocked shots.

She’s hit 81-151 (53.6%) from the field and 37-46 (80.4%) from the line.

After scoring 1,158 points during her high school career — third-best in CHS hoops history, girl or boy — Stone has poured in 1,129 during her collegiate run.

That puts her #7 all-time in Whitman women’s basketball history, just 17 points away from passing former teammate Casey Poe to claim 6th place.

Read Full Post »

Blues, Stone keep hot streak burning

Posted in Basketball, Wolves in college, tagged , , , , on January 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Makana Stone answered the call one more time Friday, going off for 19 points and 10 rebounds in a Whitman win. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The appetizer course? Delicious.

Kicking off a big weekend of hoops action, the Whitman College women’s basketball team routed visiting Lewis & Clark College 78-47 Friday night behind 19 points and 10 rebounds from Coupeville’s Makana Stone.

Now, the Blues, 3-0 in Northwest Conference play, 11-1 overall, get a stiffer challenge Saturday, when they welcome Willamette University (3-0, 9-3) to town.

The winner will move into a first-place tie with Pacific University (4-0, 10-3), a team Whitman travels to play January 17.

Friday’s game was a bit of a potential trap for the Blues, who are ranked #12 in NCAA D-III play.

Lewis & Clark entered the night with a 1-9 record, and might have looked like easy pickings.

Instead, the Pioneers came out strongly, trailing just 16-13 at the first break, then knotting things up 25-25 at the half.

Whitman was a different team after the break, however, with Stone going off for 15 of her 19 points during a 28-15 third-quarter surge.

Once they had the game back in hand, the Blues closed like savages, blowing Lewis & Clark off the floor to a 25-7 tune in the final frame.

Stone, who led Whitman in both points and rebounds, also made off with three steals and handed off an assist during a crisp 20 minutes of action.

On the season, the former Wolf sits with 182 points, 102 rebounds, 15 assists, 17 steals, and 12 blocked shots, while shooting 73-136 (53.7%) from the floor and 34-42 (81%) at the free throw line.

Friday’s game included another milestone for Stone, as she became just the seventh player in Whitman women’s basketball history to top 1,100 career points.

With 1,110 and counting, the Blues senior is just 35 points shy of catching former teammate Casey Poe for 6th on the all-time Blues scoring chart.

Read Full Post »

Join Wolf hoops in cancer fight

Posted in Basketball, Fundraisers, tagged , , , , , on January 8, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Bennett Boyles (center)

Marty and June Mazdra

Two key members of the Coupeville High School basketball community will be honored Friday, as the Wolf hoops squads host Coaches vs. Cancer games.

CHS is set to play Sultan, with games at 5:00 and 6:45.

The Wolves will pay tribute to Bennett Boyles and June Mazdra, while the Turks will also have an honoree.

Donations will be accepted at the game, as well as online, with proceeds from the night going to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Boyles is a member of the CHS Class of 2022 who lost a courageous battle at age 12 with Glioblastoma Multiforme, a form of brain cancer.

He played basketball alongside many of the current Wolf players on SWISH teams, and a seat will be left open on the Coupeville boys bench for him.

Mazdra, when she’s not doing her day job as a custodian at Coupeville Middle School, is the woman with the magic pencil.

She keeps the most beautifully written, precise basketball scorebooks in the biz, and has done so for decades, beginning when she was still a student at CHS.

Diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, Mazdra continues to stand tall in her fight, surrounded by family, friends, and fans.

If you can’t make it to Friday’s games in person, donations can be made online.

 

Bennett Boyles — Project Violet at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

https://www.fredhutch.org/en/research/divisions/clinical-research-division/research/project-violet.html

 

June Mazdra — The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

https://www.lls.org/

Read Full Post »

Stone earns college hoops honor

Posted in Basketball, Wolves in college, tagged , , , , on January 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Makana Stone opened a new year with back-to-back double-doubles for Whitman, earning Athlete of the Week honors from the Northwest Conference. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Makana Stone kicked off a new year in style.

The Coupeville High School grad was honored Monday by the Northwest Conference as its Women’s Basketball Student/Athlete of the Week.

Stone, a senior at Whitman College, was honored for the second time this season, having already been picked December 9.

She shares honors for week eight of the season with men’s basketball player Ben College (really his last name) of Whitworth and Linfield swimmers Molli Hartzell and Noah Cutting.

Returning from a three-week winter break, Stone threw down back-to-back double-doubles this past weekend, leading Whitman to a sweep over the University of Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran University.

The Blues are 2-0 in league play, 10-1 overall, and ranked #13 in NCAA D-III.

Stone collected 12 points and 12 rebounds against UPS, then went off for 14 and 11 against PLU.

On the season, the former Wolf standout is averaging 14.8 points and 8.4 boards a night, both of which tops the Blues stat sheet.

Read Full Post »

Wolf girls get a smidge of respect

Posted in Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 6, 2020| Leave a Comment »

CHS senior Tia Wurzrainer plays for the #17 girls basketball team in 1A. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The basketball overlords like us, sort of.

With the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association now posting RPI numbers, the Coupeville High School girls basketball team is trending upwards.

The Wolf boys, however, are still looking for their fair share of love.

As of Monday morning, the CHS girls sit at #17 out of 65 schools in 1A, while the boys are #57 among 63 teams.

RPI, or Rating Percentage Index, is used by the WIAA to seed teams in the postseason, beginning when the final 16 teams in each classification advance to regionals – the first round of the state tourney.

You still have to make it to regionals on your own, advancing through districts and/or bi-districts, and finishing the regular season in the top 16 in the RPI rankings guarantees nothing.

But, advance to regionals, as the Wolf girls last did in 2016, and then the WIAA takes the survivors and plugs them into games based on where the system has them ranked.

Until we get to that level of play, RPI is just for bragging rights.

The system looks at each team’s winning percentage, their opponents winning percentage, and their opponents’ opponents winning percentage.

It does not take into consideration whether a school played against opponents from higher or lower classifications, and puts no emphasis on point differential.

The biggest stumbling block to RPI is it depends on schools accurately reporting scores to MaxPreps, which … think of something tactful to say … has been … problematic at best.

But ignore all that! Cause the WIAA would like you to do just that.

So, under this flawed, but improving, system, the Coupeville girls, who boast a 6-2 record, are holding up well.

Cashmere (9-0) holds the #1 spot on the girls side, with Warden (9-0), Lynden Christian (8-1), Connell (8-0), and Freeman (7-2) rounding out the current top five.

Coupeville’s fellow North Sound Conference teams sit at #7 (King’s), #19 (Cedar Park Christian), #49 (Sultan), #50 (South Whidbey), and #58 (Granite Falls).

Nooksack Valley, the only 1A school to beat the Wolves (their other loss was to 3A Oak Harbor), is nestled in at #8.

On the boys side, where the Wolves are 3-5, big-timers Seattle Academy (8-1), Medical Lake (8-1), Zillah (10-0), Meridian (7-1), and Cashmere (5-2) are the current top five.

NSC teams King’s (#23), South Whidbey (#25), Cedar Park Christian (#28), Granite Falls (#51), and Sultan (#58) get a mixed reaction.

The Knights benefit a bit from the whole “inaccurate reporting to MaxPreps” issue, as they’re currently ranked on a 5-5 record, yet are really 5-7.

Add in those two losses, which came at a tournament in Arizona, and it’s quite possible King’s dips, and South Whidbey, at 8-2, gets a boost.

Either way, it’s just RPI – a good way to start an argument and give bloggers something to ramble on about, if nothing else.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »