Gabe Wynn, seen here in a practice, notched a team-high 15 points Friday night. (John Fisken photo)
Anthony Smith was a man of mixed emotions.
The Coupeville High School boys’ basketball coach smiled, then grimaced, then smiled again as he talked Friday night after watching his inexperienced squad lose a game it had plenty of chances to win.
“We did some good things, we put ourselves in position to win and then…,” Smith said, his voice trailing off for a moment. “I’m not OK with losing, but I am OK with how we battled.
“We’ve learned some things in these first two non-conference games. We will get better, we are getting better.”
After a blowout loss on opening night to Blaine, the Wolves were a play or two away from making things very, very different in game two, but eventually fell 47-36 to visiting Sultan.
Coupeville (0-2) now hits the road for back-to-back 1A Olympic League games next week — Wednesday at Chimacum and Friday at Klahowya — still trying to find the magic mix with a roster that is virtually absent veterans.
Gabe Wynn, who teams with Hunter Smith as the only Wolves with prior varsity experience, did everything he could do Friday, gunning away for a team-high 15 before fouling out in the final minute.
After the game, the ref who called Wynn’s fifth foul came over to tell Anthony Smith he had messed the call up, small consolation for the Coupeville contingent.
The Wolves jumped on their former Cascade Conference rival literally in the first two seconds of the game.
Sultan won the tip, but Hunter Smith snatched the rock away from a careless Turk, then slashed to the hoop for a sweeping layup.
The visitors took note, focusing on the Wolf guard intently after that and keeping him uncharacteristically quiet on the offensive end, holding him without another bucket until the fourth quarter.
Even with its top offensive weapon stifled a bit, Coupeville controlled the first quarter, surging out to a 10-5 lead with both Wynn and Ethan Spark draining three-point bombs.
The first of several dry spells for the Wolves hurt, though, as they went scoreless over a six-minute stretch that covered the end of the first quarter and much of the second.
Even so, when they finally broke the drought with a slashing runner off of Hunter Downes fingertips at the 2:55 mark of the second quarter, CHS only trailed by a point.
Sparked by an intense effort on the defensive end, with Cameron Toomey-Stout leading a ball-hawking, aggressive zone, Coupeville overcame its cold shooting.
Spark tickled the twines for a trey to kick off the third quarter, and down 18-17, the Wolves looked ready to break things open.
But it didn’t happen.
Sultan, picking up most of its baskets on quick cuts to the hoop, put together a game-busting 13-2 surge in which Coupeville’s only points came on a pair of free throws from Wynn.
Down by 12 twice, with the last time early in the fourth quarter, Coupeville fought back.
A pull-up jumper from Wynn and a trey from Hunter Smith, wrapped around a resounding block by Brian Shank, lit the fuse and a string of successful trips to the charity stripe brought CHS back within 37-33.
The Turks held fast, however, converting back-to-back buckets off of offensive rebounds.
The second one was a particular killer on which Wynn, and not the man who crashed into him, was whistled for a game-icing foul.
Elias Lopez led Sultan with a game-high 20, while Coupeville put seven of its nine players into the scoring column.
Wynn’s 15 was backed up by seven each from Hunter Smith and Spark, while Downes, Steven Cope and Joey Lippo added a basket apiece.
Ariah Bepler rounded out the scoring with a free throw.
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