Coupeville Sports

Brian Norris (with sign), Colin Belliveau (left) and Cole Payne (right) implore Wolf senior guard Morgan Payne to accept the endorsement of the Bad-ass Party. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Second verse, same as the first.

Less than 24 hours after falling at South Whidbey, the Coupeville High School boys’ basketball team laced up their sneakers again and welcomed Friday Harbor to town Wednesday for a non-conference game.

Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have learned from their mistakes, as the Wolves played essentially the same game as they did a night before.

Fall into a big hole, come roaring back but don’t get quite all the way there, and watch in frustration as time runs out, leaving a team tired of moral victories saddled with yet another one.

A 20-11 run to close the game — with Nick Streubel scoring nine of the points while playing with four fouls — got the crowd rocking.

But, with CHS starting the fourth quarter down 16, it wasn’t enough to stave off an eventual 62-55 loss.

Now 3-14 on the year, the Wolves have triple the “real” victories than they had last season, but too many “moral” victories for coach Anthony Smith’s taste.

“32 minutes. We need to put together 32 minutes,” Smith said. “We had great moments, but we need 32 minutes.”

Streubel, who picked up two fouls in the first 51 seconds of the game from overly-sensitive refs and sat the rest of the first half, took over the game down the stretch.

With Wiley Hesselgrave having fouled out and fellow Wolf guard Joel Walstad soon to follow, The Big Hurt staved off his own elimination and played with wild abandon, converting three offensive boards into buckets.

Coupeville pulled to within 55-49 on back-to-back buckets from Gavin O’Keefe and Anthony Bergeron, but Friday Harbor closed out the game at the free throw line and never wavered.

Bergeron poured in seven of his team-high 20 in the late run, including a late three-pointer.

The silky senior had another big run in the second quarter, when he threw down nine points on a variety of shots.

Two buckets came off of offensive rebounds, as he used his spring-loaded legs to out-jump the defenders, while another came on a scorching drive through the paint, where he twisted through a mass of bodies while being hammered.

After trailing by double digits for much of the game, Coupeville cut the lead to seven late in the third, only to suffer a crippling lapse.

After three consecutive missed free throws by the Wolves, Friday Harbor went on a 9-0 surge to close the quarter, staking itself to a 47-31 lead.

With the Wolves throwing down almost as many points in the fourth (24) as they did in the first three quarters combined (31), the visiting Wolverines ended up needing every point in the end.

Streubel banged away for 15 to back-up Bergeron, who became the first Coupeville player, boy or girl, to score 20+ points twice this season.

Both he and Makana Stone have had games of 23 this year, while Jared Helmstadter scored 21 in a JV boys’ game.

O’Keefe hit for nine, Hesselgrave popped for seven and Walstad swished home four.

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