After fighting hard for four seasons, Aaron Trumbull and his fellow seniors sit on the cusp of earning a playoff berth. (John Fisken photo)
Chimacum rolled into the gym in high spirits. Their players left with their chins hanging on the ground.
A game after the Cowboys clinched the 1A Olympic League boys’ basketball title, they got walloped at crunch time by a feisty, fired-up Coupeville squad Friday night.
Rebounding from a slow start, the Wolves came up with gut-check play after gut-check play when it mattered most and drove a standing-room-only home crowd bonkers with a wild 72-68 overtime triumph.
The fourth win in its last seven games, the victory lifted Coupeville to 7-11 overall, 3-5 in league play.
It also put the Wolves in the driver’s seat for the league’s #3 (and final) playoff seed.
If Port Townsend lost to Klahowya (their game was late Friday night), Coupeville is in.
A Redhawk win and they and the Wolves would be tied with a game to play, with CHS owning the tiebreaker.
Just as they had done in their previous game, a comeback win against Port Townsend, the Wolves put together their best effort in the fourth quarter.
Up 45-44 entering the final eight minutes, Coupeville stretched the lead to five, then gave it all back, falling behind by three with two minutes to play.
It was at that point that Wiley Hesselgrave took over, scoring the Wolves’ final eight points.
After hitting a spectacular shot where he came roaring up the gut, took a body blow in mid-air from a Cowboy defender and stayed upright long enough to drain the ball, he showed further composure under fire.
A technical foul on Chimacum sent the Wolf junior to the line, where he drained both free throws to give his squad a 62-59 lead.
It wouldn’t hold, however, as the Cowboys stole the ball on the next play and sprinted down court, where, without blinking, they immediately went for the three-point bomb that would tie the game.
As it tickled nothing but the net on the way down, the collective scream of agony from Wolf Nation was louder than a Navy jet taking off from your front lawn.
While Matt Shank’s jumper to win the game at the buzzer fell short, Coupeville kept the pressure up entering overtime, and it paid off.
Shank hit a pair of free throws, then banged home a short jumper after corralling a loose ball to stake the Wolves to a 68-64 lead and they never looked back.
Chimacum scored twice more, but each time Coupeville answered right back.
After a mad melee in the paint, Aaron Curtin roared back skyward for a crucial put-back bucket, then Hesselgrave dropped in a final pair of free throws, each make a dagger to the heart of the Cowboys.
The wild finish capped an intense, hard-nosed game.
Coupeville fell behind by seven in the early going, then got a kick start from a ferocious block by Ryan Griggs that seemed to change the flow of the game.
The Wolves snagged their first lead of the game seconds before the halftime break on a smooth running jumper off the hands of Joel Walstad.
Twice after that they would stretch the lead out to five, but were never able to pull away from the Cowboys.
Then came the fourth quarter, known around these parts as Wiley Time.
Hesselgrave threw down 13 of his team-high 21 in the final period in regulation, then added four more in overtime as he once again proved himself the master of crunch time.
Before he took off, Coupeville had spread the offense around nicely.
Three other players finished in double digits, led by Curtin’s 13.
Walstad popped for 12, Trumbull rumbled for 11, Shank banked in eight and Griggs dropped in seven.
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