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Not all losses are the same

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , on December 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Aiden O’Neill slashes to the hoop. (Julie Wheat photo)

Three games into a new season, the Coupeville High School varsity boys’ basketball team is still looking for its first victory.

But Saturday’s razor-thin 45-43 non-conference defeat to visiting Eastside Prep, a game which literally hung in the balance until the final tenth of a second, was a big step forward for the Wolves.

Coupeville, which hasn’t had its complete roster together at any point yet, in games or practices, is learning under duress, but getting tougher each time out.

Saturday was proof of that, as Brad Sherman’s 2B squad weathered an early run by a 1A team that was quick on the floor, and quick to complain, with the Cow Town hoops stars putting themselves into position to win or force overtime on the game’s final play.

And while that final shot — on which Chase Anderson had to sprint from one end of the floor to the other as the final four seconds flew off the clock — failed to drop, it still provided a final jolt of electricity to warm the cold weekend gym.

Eastside Prep, coming off a narrow loss to South Whidbey the night before, came to town riled up.

The Eagles were quick, they were occasionally dynamic, and their GQ-looking coaches filled up the air with enough complaints you might have thought they were auditioning for gigs with old-school Wolf private school rivals like King’s or Archbishop Thomas Murphy.

Up 10-2 in the early going, the whining was academic at first, then got pronouncedly more frequent as Coupeville suddenly started blowing up Eastside’s plans.

Anderson came up from beneath the hoop to split two defenders for a bucket, then fired a long outlet pass to a rampaging Camden Glover for a breakaway, and the rally was underway.

Coupeville closed the first quarter with seven straight points, the final two on a pullup jumper by Glover right in the face of his defender, before opening the second with back-to-back buckets.

In front 13-10 after the surge, which also featured some rough ‘n tumble defense from Mahkai Myles, Liam Blas, Davin Houston, and Glover, CHS showed it wouldn’t back down easy.

Neither would Eastside, however, as the Eagles combined slashing guards with a burly lumberjack-style dude clogging up the paint to battle the Wolves bucket for bucket.

Camden Glover delivered a standout performance on both ends of the floor Saturday afternoon. (Photo courtesy Stevie Glover)

Glover, who is a bit of a beast down low himself, showed off some surprisingly fleet feet, chasing down a runaway Eagle from behind and belting his would-be shot off the back wall of the gym, setting off his fan club of devoted lil’ kids.

While Eastside clung to a 21-18 lead at the half, the Wolves went ahead 22-21 shortly into the third, only to have the Eagles bounce back with a 7-0 run.

From there, it was two teams standing in the middle of the floor, whaling on each other, waiting to see who would buckle first. Answer: neither of them.

Glover and running mate Aiden O’Neill both rippled the net on three-balls, as the Wolves fought back from seven down early in the fourth to tie things up at 42-42 in the waning moments.

That set up a final 30 seconds that had passion, gusto, and, unfortunately, one big shot from Eastside Prep’s lumberjack, Vlad Guz, as he crashed into the paint for a back-breaking layup delivered through a forest of arms.

A free throw got Coupeville back within 44-43, but an Eagle freebie made it 45-43.

When Eastside’s second charity shot slid off the rim, the Wolves snatched the rebound, but had no timeouts left, forcing Anderson to try and go the length of the floor while being hacked every step of the way.

An unbalanced shot, thrown up on a dead run, came tantalizingly close, but there would be no miracles on this day.

Tomorrow, possibly, but not today.

Playing his second game of the season after missing the opener with injuries, Anderson tossed in a game-high 22 points.

That carries the Wolf senior to 638 points and moves him from #32 to #29 on the CHS boys’ basketball career scoring chart, which covers 109 seasons.

Anderson passed all-timers Wiley Hesselgrave (632), Kramer O’Keefe (636), and Rich Morris (637) Saturday, while Glover, who went for 12, raised his own career total to 139 points — passing Wolf JV coach (and Chase’s dad) Craig Anderson (132) on the list.

Myles (4), O’Neill (3), and Sage Arends (2) rounded out the scorers, with Blas, Riley Lawless, Houston, and Easton Green also seeing floor time for the Wolves.

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Coxsey, Stockdale spark rising stars

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , , on December 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Nathan Coxsey, seen here during football season, is now rampaging on the hardwood. (Photo courtesy Erin Coxsey)

The basket got stingy at just the wrong moment.

Up by six points on visiting Eastside Prep late in the fourth quarter Saturday, the Coupeville High School JV boys’ basketball squad suddenly ran out of buckets when it needed them most, letting the Eagles slip away with a 33-29 victory.

The non-conference loss drops the Wolves to 1-2 on the season, with another home bout, this one against East Jefferson, set for Tuesday night.

After a back-and-forth first half, Coupeville seemingly seized control of the game after the halftime break.

Trailing 14-10 heading into the third quarter, the Wolves opened with an 8-0 surge, thanks to four different players putting their names in the scorebook.

Nathan Coxsey drained a pair of free throws, Josh Stockdale went coast-to-coast for a layup, Chris Zenz put a rebound back up and in, and Carson Grove swooped past the defense for a sweet runner, and CHS was living large.

Eventually holding on to a 20-16 lead at the end of three, Coupeville continued to clamp down on defense, led by a fired-up Khanor Jump, who cleaned the boards with a fury.

Two more buckets from Stockdale and one from Coxsey staked the Wolves to a 26-20 advantage, and Eastside Prep was beginning to get desperate.

Unfortunately for the local fans, the off-Islanders suddenly found their groove, hitting a pair of three-balls, after missing approximately 11,407 prior long-range heaves, and closed the game on a 13-3 tear.

Down the stretch, CHS got free throws from Jump and Liam Lawson, but couldn’t get a field goal to drop across the game’s final four minutes and change.

The furious finish capped a game which started as a fairly low-scoring, defense-orientated affair.

Eastside Prep clung to a 5-4 lead after one quarter of action, with both of Coupeville’s buckets coming from Coxsey and set up by strong passes off the fingertips of Carson Grove.

Coxsey and Stockdale eventually pushed CHS ahead, but the visitors closed the half with a 7-2 mini-run to reclaim the lead and set up the second-half theatrics.

Ten Wolves saw floor time, with six of them scoring, led by Coxsey, who dropped in a season-high 12 points.

Stockdale (8), Grove (4), Jump (2), Zenz (2), and Lawson (1) also scored, with Brian Thompson, Trent Thule, Ayden Warren, and Jaden Flores Garcia rounding out the active roster.

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It was a wild night in the ol’ Cow Town

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , , on December 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Carson Grove, seen here last season, rained down 11 points in a wild one Thursday night. (Parker Hammons photo)

You don’t see that every day.

Playing in prime-time Thursday, the Coupeville High School JV boys’ basketball team hooked up with visiting Forks in a raucous rumble which featured … deep breath …

A full-scale, punches-thrown fight which crashed into the scorer’s table and revived memories of the rough-and-tumble world of 1990’s high school hoops.

One team accidentally scoring for the other.

A ref spending more time getting sassy, lecturing assistant coaches on both benches, than he did in stopping said fight, coming to a skidding stop and staying well out of range of the fisticuffs.

The Wolves rallying from 15 down.

The game coming down to the final millisecond, ending with a 37-36 win for Forks and a dismissive hand wave from the conflict-averse official as he fled the gym, likely ankling for a warm cup of tea to calm his frazzled nerves.

So, basically, as one coach said, “The most JV of all JV games.”

The second units went second for once, with the varsity playing first, in case Forks had to leave early to catch a ferry and return to their far-away land of rain and gloom.

They did not, which was just as well, since the JV game delivered more than its share of plot twists, eyebrow raisers, and WTF moments.

In the beginning, it was all Forks, all the time, as the Spartans built a 10-2 lead after one quarter, then stretched the advantage out to 19-4 midway through the second after banking in a three-ball that was shot from somewhere down around the ferry dock.

The Wolves were struggling but finally got the spark they seemed to need thanks to a Forks player losing his mind.

It started simple and ended complex.

A Coupeville player lobbed a pass over the soon-to-go-nuclear Spartan in the far corner, then headed back up court. There was the briefest of ticky-tacky collisions.

However, moments later, the Forks player charged down half the length of the floor and, arms swinging, launched an attack, with the Wolf defending himself and winning on the scorecard.

Personally, it reminded me of a game in 1993 when an Oak Harbor girl slugged a particularly obnoxious Everett rival, and the night ended with local police escorting a bus out of town.

It was a different time, certainly, highlighted by the refs back then actually jumping into the fray.

Thursday there were three officials on the floor, yet only one attempted to physically stop the fight, as the other two went into a full retreat, leaving coaches to bring things to an end.

For a moment, it seemed like the game might be called on the spot, but then, other than the two players being ejected, everyone basically looked the other way and pretended none of it just happened.

Things continued to be a bit rough-and-tumble from there, but the focus quickly shifted from cheap shots to made shots.

Coupeville closed the first half on an 8-0 … well, we can’t exactly call it a run when six of those points came via free throws … but it changed the tone of things.

Back within 19-12 at the half, the Wolves got the deficit down to five in the third, watched it creep back up to nine, then put together a charge to take control for a bit.

Three-balls from Carson Grove, Trent Thule, and Liam Lawson fired up the scoreboard operator, while Khanor Jump and Josh Stockdale rampaged on defense.

And then in the middle of a particularly frantic scramble, Forks forgot which basket it was trying to score on, with a Spartan knocking down a pretty, pretty layup … on the basket he was supposed to be defending.

The gift bucket gave Coupeville its first lead of the game, and the Wolves went to the bench at the end of the third up 32-30.

But after combining for 31 points in the third quarter, the two teams rattled the rims for just 11 more in the fourth.

Grove rolled past his defender and popped a short jumper to knot things up at 35-35, before Jump nailed a free throw to cap the scoring, but Forks made off with one last bucket in the paint in between those two events to set the final score.

Coupeville had a chance to steal the game at the end, but the clock ran out on them, evening its early season record at 1-1.

Grove had the hot hand, popping for a team-high 11 points, while Stockdale (9), Lawson (5), Jump (3), Thule (3), Ayden Warren (2), and Brian Thompson (1) also scored, with Jayden McManus, Chris Zenz, and Nathan Coxsey seeing floor time for the Wolves.

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Spartans hold off Wolf rally

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , on December 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Chase Anderson, seen in action last season, rattled the rims for 17 points Thursday. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net) 

Full roster, full intensity.

After missing two key players on opening night, the Coupeville High School varsity boys’ basketball team was back at full strength Thursday but came up just short in a physical early-afternoon rumble with visiting Forks.

The Wolves clawed back from a 16-point deficit, overcame an ejection of a starter — on a questionable call — and showed considerable grit, but the Spartans held on late to pull away for a 59-49 win.

The non-conference loss drops Coupeville to 0-2 on the young season, but Brad Sherman’s squad will get a chance to bounce back fast with a home game Saturday against Eastside Prep.

CHS netted its first basket of the game, knotting things at 2-2, thanks to a wham-bam series of plays, with Mahkai Myles rejecting a Forks shot, Aiden O’Neill chasing down the ball and firing off a laser of a pass, and Chase Anderson hauling in the outlet heave and slapping home the layup.

Unfortunately for the Wolves it would take almost 12 minutes of floor time to net their second field goal.

Free throws from Davin Houston and Malachi Somes kept Coupeville within 14-6 as the first quarter ended, but then Forks pushed the lead all the way out to 22-6 midway through the second frame.

The Wolves had some good looks at the basket but couldn’t get anything to go down until O’Neill took over.

He followed up a made free throw by connecting on back-to-back three balls, one from each side of the floor, to kick off a 17-3 explosion to close the half, getting CHS back within 25-23 at the break.

O’Neill also had a coast-to-coast run for a bucket, while Sage Arends was feeling it as well, sinking a three-ball of his own, then closing the half with a steal and layup.

But while Coupeville was back in the game after the rally, it was never able to capture the lead.

Three times in the third quarter the Wolves again cut the margin back to two, with Camden Glover channeling Dikembe Mutombo with back-to-back blocked shots on defense, while Somes converted a bucket off of an offensive rebound.

Forks didn’t flinch however, stretching the lead back out to eight by the end of the third and as many as 14 in the final frame.

An 8-0 Coupeville surge, with three different Wolves scoring, cut the deficit to 50-44, but Forks was able to close out the win while camped at the free throw line.

The Spartans didn’t shoot all that well at the charity stripe, making just 12 of 27 freebies while CHS was 16-20, but it was enough to disrupt any flow for the Wolves.

Not helping was an overly touchy third ref who had a bad angle on a play during a battle for a loose ball, but still stroked out on the spot, spittle flying as he angrily ejected a Wolf defender for reasons known only to himself (and his missing seeing-eye dog).

Anderson, who missed the opener as he rehabs various injuries, returned Thursday to lead the Wolves with 17 points, continuing to work his way into history.

Now sitting with 616 career points and counting, the CHS senior moves from #36 to #32 on the program’s all-time scoring list, passing Joe Whitney (601), Denny Zylstra (602), Greg White (604), and John O’Grady (611) on a chart which dates back to 1917.

O’Neill pumped in 14 points to back up Anderson, with Somes (6), Arends (5), Houston (4), and Glover (3) also scoring, while Liam Blas, Myles, Easton Green, and Riley Lawless saw floor time.

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Close games, big intensity

Posted in Boys Basketball, Middle School, tagged , , , , on December 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Coupeville defenders Nico Strong (10), Abel O’Neil (middle) and Les Queen (right) converge on a rival in an earlier game. (Julie Wheat photo)

It was a rumble in the side gym.

While their high school counterparts punched it out with Forks next door Thursday, the Coupeville Middle School boys’ basketball squads did their own dance with visiting Lakewood.

Squaring off with a much-bigger school, the Wolves won one and narrowly lost two in an afternoon of close finishes.

 

How the day played out:

 

Level 1:

A single point separated the top squads, with Lakewood sneaking away with a razor-thin 44-43 victory.

While the loss drops Coupeville to 2-4 on the season, the Wolves showed plenty of offensive pop, with a trio of players hitting double-digit scoring on the afternoon.

CMS big man Diesel Eck was rumbling in the paint and popping outside to singe the nets on a three-ball, en route to a game-high 18-point performance.

Backing him up with 10 points each was River Simpson and Kamden Ratcliff, while Trey Stewart banked in three, and Xander Beaman popped for two to round out the attack.

Gracen Joiner, Darius Stewart, Colton Ashby, and Aiden Wheat also saw floor time for the Wolves.

CMS coach Alex Evans (red hat) plots some strategy. (Suzan Georges photo)

 

Level 2:

Another close one, but this time it was the Wolves who got to howl at the end.

Sparked by 14 points off the fingertips of Les Queen, CMS came out on top 33-31 to run its record to a sparkling 5-1.

RayLynn Ratcliff’s squad has won four straight games, with their only loss this season coming early to powerhouse King’s.

While Queen earned top honors in the scoring column, five other Wolves scored as well, led by Braxten Ratcliff, who made the nets jump for seven points.

Nico Strong (4), Xander Flowers (4), Abel O’Neil (2), and Brady Sherman (2) also tallied points, with Brayden Grinstead, Henry Purdue, Mario Martinez, and Hayden Maynes seeing floor time.

 

Level 3:

A late run wasn’t quite enough for Coupeville, which fell 29-22 and sits at 1-4 on the season.

The Wolves poured in 13 of their points in the fourth quarter, but a scoreless third stung.

Dreyke Mendiola paced CMS with seven points, with Gabe Reed (6), Luke Blas (5), Alton Hansen (3), and LJ Schultz (1) also making the scorebook keeper burn some pencil lead.

Oliver Miller, Burke Winger, Jack Bailey, Vincent Alguire, Logan Dees, Jon Driscoll, Dom Durbin, and Logan Flowers rounded out the roster, bringing passion and grit to their time on the floor.

 

Up next:

Two more games left in the season, and they are both Monday matinees at home.

Coupeville hosts Sultan Dec. 8, then wraps the campaign by welcoming South Whidbey to Cow Town Dec. 15. Tipoff is 3:15 PM each time.

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