Out of 10 Wolf track stars to compete at the 2019 state meet, Ja’Kenya Hoskins is the only one still at CHS in 2021. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
Chelsea Prescott is one of five current Wolf softball sluggers who was on the varsity squad when Coupeville last played — at the state tourney May 24, 2019.
650 days.
That’s the gap between May 25, 2019 and March 4, 2021.
The first date is the last time a Coupeville High School spring sports team competed, and the second is the day the Wolf track team is scheduled to host a season-opening meet, signaling the return from the COVID-19 shutdown.
Spring sports were the first major casualty when the pandemic shut down schools in 2020.
Instead of a swan song for Wolf stars such as Scout Smith, Emma Mathusek, and the Toomey-Stout twins, Maya and Sean, fields and ovals remained silent.
While fall and winter sports have not been played in their traditional spots this school year, the hope is that spring 2020 will be the only truly empty season.
Coupeville, and its new mates in the Northwest 2B/1B League, started practice Monday, and spring sports are scheduled to run, with pared-down schedules, from February 22 to April 3.
Fall sports will go from March 29 to May 8, with winter sports expected to cap the 2020-2021 school year from May 3 to June 12.
By the time fall 2021 rolls around, will we be back to “normal?”
No one knows for sure, and, if they tell you they do, they don’t.
But, hope is back, as, masks in place, Wolf athletes return to Coupeville’s ballfields, tennis courts, and track ovals.
Way back on the weekend of May 24-25, 2019, CHS was having a pretty dang good time, with its softball and track teams competing at the state championships.
The diamond dandies, making their third trip to the big dance in 41 years of competition, put together the second-best showing in program history.
The Wolves put up a strong fight against eventual state champ Montensano, came back to thrash highly-rated Deer Park, then fell in a donnybrook with Cle Elum, a play shy of advancing to day two of the tourney.
Nine Wolves collected a hit at state, with 13 girls seeing action.
Mathusek paced the squad with six base-knocks, including three doubles, with Sarah Wright (5), Chloe Wheeler (4), Smith (4), Veronica Crownover (3), Chelsea Prescott (3), Mollie Bailey (2), Nicole Laxton (1), and Coral Caveness (1) all collecting hits.
Izzy Wells, Audrianna Shaw, Mackenzie Davis, and Marenna Rebischke-Smith also played for the Wolves.
Five of those 13 are still eligible nearly two years later, with Prescott, Bailey, and Caveness now seniors, while Wells and Shaw are juniors.
While CHS softball was rockin’ in Richland, Wolf track stars were shining in Cheney.
Coupeville’s Danny Conlisk won state titles in the 200 and 400, just missing the trifecta when he finished second in the 100.
Smashing school records in both of his winning events, the then-senior became just the fifth Wolf to win multiple titles in the same season, joining Natasha Bamberger, Jon Chittim, Kyle King, and Tyler King.
Coupeville also claimed a 2nd in the 400 (Mallory Kortuem), a 3rd in the 100 Hurdles (Lindsey Roberts), and a 3rd in the 4 x 200 relay (Ja’Kenya Hoskins, Maya Toomey-Stout, Roberts, and Kortuem).
Roberts, after taking home three state meet medals in her senior campaign, closed her stellar prep career with eight, the most of any girl in program history.
Of the 10 Wolves who competed in Cheney in the spring of 2019, only one remains at CHS.
Ja’Kenya Hoskins was just a freshman that season, and the upcoming March 4 meet will officially kick off her junior year.
With no state tourney planned for 2021, though, she will have to wait until 2022 for a possible return to Cheney.
Coupeville’s other three spring sports teams fell short of state in 2019, but all had big moments along the way.
The Wolf girls tennis team wrapped things May 14, when then-juniors Avalon Renninger and Tia Wurzrainer were eliminated at the bi-district tourney.
The deadly duo were early favorites to nab a bid to state in 2020, but the pandemic had other ideas.
Wolf baseball closed its season May 4, a 3-2 loss at bi-districts to Overlake the final game (it turned out) for coach Chris Smith.
Coupeville had opened the season with a somewhat-deceptive 0-12 mark, as its hardball squad was a run here, a run there from being above .500.
Things finally clicked into place late in the season, when the Wolves stormed to seven straight wins, including handing arch-rival South Whidbey the loss which prevented the Falcons from earning a league title.
Two starters from the team are still around in 2021, with Daniel Olson now a senior, and Hawthorne Wolfe a junior.
The final CHS spring sports team in ’19 was boys soccer. With the move to 2B, that program now plays during the traditional fall season.
Two years ago, the Wolf booters saw their season also end May 4, after suffering a 3-1 district playoff loss to Meridian.
Coupeville hung tough against the #1 seed from the Northwest Conference, though, especially since injuries had decimated the Wolves.
Players responsible for scoring 31 of the team’s 34 goals were sidelined against Meridian, while starting goalie Dewitt Cole was also unable to play.
The lone Wolf to hit the back of the net against Meridian that day was then-freshman Xavier Murdy, and he’s one of three goal scorers from the 2019 squad who could return in 2021.
Sage Downes and Tony Garcia are also still at CHS.
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