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Archive for the ‘Football’ Category

Roll call of the gridiron greats!!

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , , on September 10, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Hunter Smith (top left) is joined in the end zone by fellow record holders (clockwise, from top right) Chad Gale, Brian Fakkema, Nick Streubel, Ian Smith, Joe Kelley, Josh Bayne, Ian Barron, Joel Walstad and Brad Sherman.

Hunter Smith (4) is joined by fellow record holders (clockwise, from top right) Chad Gale, Brian Fakkema, Nick Streubel, Ian Smith, Joe Kelley, Josh Bayne, Ian Barron, Joel Walstad and Brad Sherman.

Imagine a magical world.

In this utopia, a chain-smoking, bee-hived-hairdo-rockin’ lady (we’ll call her Gladys) has been working out of a small office in the back of the Coupeville High School gym complex for decades.

While there she’s been faithfully recording stats and filing them away neatly in frequently-dusted filing cabinets.

Now, come back to reality, where any pursuit of Wolf athletic history involves latching on to whatever scattered records someone pulls out of their dusty attic or spending hours trying not to rip the brittle pages of the bound volumes in the Whidbey News-Times archives.

So, it is, with justifiable trepidation that I approach calling any history definitive.

But, having gone cross-eyed and ink-stained, I am, we’ll say, 98.3% certain that the CHS football records I’m about to present are pretty dang close to being canon.

With one or two niggling doubts still trying to be ironed out.

As you scan these records, the oldest of which hails from 1970 (and yes, I went back WAY before that), remember several things.

One, sacks were not tallied as such in the olden days, so the players of earlier decades may have hauled down a lot of quarterbacks but will never own the record.

Two, the game has changed, with tons of tweaks aimed at ramping up offenses.

Go back in the archives and there are quite a few 6-0 games, and quite a few talented players who never had the chance to put up numbers like the modern day guys.

And three, and this is the biggest of them all — high school football stats, especially at small schools, are notoriously fickle and largely dependent on how good that year’s record keepers were.

But you don’t care about all the rationale, you just want the glossy numbers.

So here you go, my 98.3% correct all-time Coupeville High School football records.

If you disagree, speak up now or forever hold your peace.

And, if you want to argue, have something to back up your story.

Missing stat sheets, newspaper clippings which tell a different tale than what I saw, game film, a time travel machine that allows us to go back and watch it all unfold live.

Bring it on, I say.

BEST INDIVIDUAL SINGLE-GAME PERFORMANCE:

Rushing Yards – (320) Ian Barron-1998
Passing Yards – (403) Gabe Eck-2015
Receiving Yards – (202) Chad Gale-1987
Rushing TDs – (6) Ian Barron-2000
Passing TDs – (4) Corey Cross-1971, Brad Sherman-2001
Receiving TDs – (3) Glenn Losey-1970, Brian Fakkema-2001, Josh Bayne-2014
Tackles – (27) Scott McMartin-1981
Interceptions – (4) Brian Fakkema-2002
Sacks — (4) Nick Streubel-2013

BEST INDIVIDUAL SEASON:

Rushing Yards – (1753) Ian Barron-1998
Passing Yards – (1848) Ian Smith-2010
Receiving Yards – (844) Chad Gale-1987
Rushing TDs – (16) Ian Barron-1998
Passing TDs – (18) Joel Walstad-2014
Receiving TDs – (10) Josh Bayne-2014
Tackles – (142) Joe Kelley-2001
Interceptions – (7) Dan Neider-1986, Hunter Smith-2015
Sacks – (10) Nick Streubel-2013

BEST INDIVIDUAL CAREER:

Rushing Yards – (4713) Ian Barron
Passing Yards – (3613) Brad Sherman
Receiving Yards – (1345) Chad Gale
Rushing TDs – (37) Ian Barron
Passing TDs – (33) Brad Sherman
Receiving TDs – (17) Chad Gale
Tackles – (301) Joe Kelley
Interceptions – (12) Josh Bayne
Sacks – (12) Nick Sellgren

BEST TEAM SINGLE-SEASON PERFORMANCE:

Rushing Yards – (2742) 2014
Passing Yards – (1863) 2014
Receiving Yards – (1863) 2014
Rushing TDs – (26) 2014
Passing TDs – (20) 2014
Receiving TDs – (20) 2014
Tackles – (800) 2008
Interceptions – (20) 1986
Sacks – (22) 1996

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“We kept fighting all the way!!”

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , , on September 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Senior Clay Reilly recovered a fumble and hauled in a 31-yard pass Friday. (John Fisken photo)

   Senior Clay Reilly fought hard on both sides of the ball Friday, recovering a fumble and hauling in a 31-yard pass. (John Fisken photo)

Second verse, not as sweet as the first.

Coming off a big win in week one, the Coupeville High School football team was flying high headed into Friday night’s clash at La Conner.

Unfortunately, a big, bruising, highly-efficient and ultimately pretty cold-blooded Braves squad reminded the very young Wolves there’s still a lot of work to do if they want to compete with the big boys.

By the time La Conner was done rolling to a 53-6 win, punctuating it by choosing to score with just 14 seconds to play rather than take a knee, a fair amount of damage had been done.

The key will be how the Wolves, who have just three seniors on their roster, respond to their first setback of the season.

“I liked that we kept fighting all the way,” said Coupeville coach Jon Atkins as he stood on a somber sideline after the game.

“We knew going in this would probably be the best team we face this season and it would be a tough one,” he added. “Now we gotta bounce back and prove we can get a win after a loss and get right back on track.”

A big key for the Wolves as they head into week three, when they host Nooksack Valley, also 1-1, in the final non-conference game on the schedule, will be to cut down on turnovers.

Coupeville was stung in the first half Friday by two huge miscues deep in La Conner territory.

Trailing 6-0 and with the ball in their hands for the first time, the Wolves drove from their own 29 to the Braves 12, with a 31-yard pass play from Hunter Downes to Clay Reilly helping move the chains.

But with Coupeville knocking on the door of making it a tie game, or taking the lead, it coughed up the ball, losing a fumble on the nine-yard line.

La Conner took immediate advantage, pulling off an 84-yard touchdown pass just three plays later.

After the Braves tacked on another score on the first play of the second quarter, the Wolves suffered their other huge momentum-killer.

Putting together a solid drive, keyed by a long pass from Downes to Hunter Smith, CHS made a play for the end zone, only to have La Conner standout Budda Luna jump a route and pick off the ball.

With an open field ahead of him, he hurtled 89 yards to the end zone, putting the game on ice.

Coupeville finally got on the board with a little under seven minutes to play in the first half, when Downes cranked a ball down the right sideline and Smith outran his defender to snag the ball for a 48-yard touchdown strike.

It was the fourth touchdown of the season for the junior receiver.

That was about it for the large contingent of Wolf faithful who traveled over to La Conner, however, as, other than a few plays here and there, the rest of the night was fairly uneventful.

Reilly recovered a fumble deep in his own territory to end one Braves drive, Uriel Liquidano stuffed a play right at the line of scrimmage and drove the runner back for a loss, and Jacob Martin chased down a breakaway runner from behind, preventing a score.

Smith came dangerously close to breaking off a kickoff return for a touchdown for the second straight week, but got snagged at the last second and had to settle for a 55-yard jaunt when he wanted 75 yards.

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They like him! They really like him!!

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , on September 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Hunter Smith (John Fisken photo)

   Hunter Smith holds up one thumb for each interception he snagged in week one of the season. (John Fisken photo)

Hunter Smith wasted no time.

The Coupeville High School junior jumped on things right out of the gate and was tabbed as an Athlete of the Week winner Friday by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association.

Getting the honor out of the way in week one of the 2016-2017 sports schedule takes all the pressure off, as athletes can only win once in a school year.

Smith, who was honored for his play in the Wolves 41-10 season-opening shredding of football arch-rival South Whidbey, joins a list of distinguished CHS athletes to win the award.

Other recent Wolf winners include three-time honoree Makana Stone, Katrina McGranahan and Josh Bayne.

Smith was a two-way terror last Saturday, picking apart the Falcons on both sides of the ball.

He scored three touchdowns, two on passes from Hunter Downes and one on a 76-yard kickoff return to put a final stamp on the rout.

Between his receiving, rushing and return duties, Smith rolled up more than 200 all-purpose yards.

Capping his night, he also picked off two South Whidbey passes.

That gives Smith 10 interceptions for his career, just two shy of tying Bayne’s career record among Wolf gridiron greats.

To bask in the award, and see who else the WIAA honored, pop over to:

http://www.wiaa.com/subcontent.aspx?SecID=961

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Embrace the past, win in the present!!

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , , on September 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Dale Sherman, still basking in the glow of Coupeville's 1963 beat-down of La Conner on the gridiron. (Sherry Roberts photo)

   Dale Sherman, still basking in the glow of Coupeville’s 57-7 beat-down of La Conner in 1963. (Sherry Roberts photo)

Play like it’s 1963.

As the Coupeville High School football team heads to La Conner tonight (7 PM kickoff) to meet one of its most storied rivals, the stakes are relatively high for this early in the season.

While it’s a non-conference game, win and the Wolves open at 2-0 for the first time since 2009.

Plus, anytime you take down the Braves, who have a truly rich athletic history, it’s a cause for major celebration.

Which takes us back to Sept. 27, 1963 and the beat-down heard across the state.

That day a scrappy Coupeville squad found itself in a hole just one play into the game.

La Conner, having won the coin flip, took the opening kick-off to the house, returning it 80+ yards for a touchdown.

With barely a few seconds ticked off on the game clock, the Wolves were trailing, they were disorientated and they were desperate.

Or were they?

53 years down the road, the exact mood of the moment is probably hard to remember.

But this much is true, it shifted quickly.

Coupeville promptly threw down 57 unanswered points — eight touchdowns and a game-capping safety — and thrashed the bejeebers out of the Braves 57-7.

By the time they were done the Wolves would rack up a 386-23 advantage in yards, one of the most lopsided statistical games in CHS history.

Bob Rea, the strikeout king on the baseball diamond, got things going when he chucked a 46-yard bomb to receiver Denny Clark for a game-tying touchdown.

After that, it was boom, boom, boom, as the scores kept coming, one after another.

Rea connected with Clark for a second score, then the Wolves went to the ground with a relentless attack.

Denny Keith and Eddie Brown each rumbled into the end zone twice, while Dale Sherman and Gary Crandall both chipped in with their own stroll to pay dirt.

Crandall’s was a bit of a surprise, as he wasn’t even a running back.

With the score getting lopsided, Coupeville’s coaching staff moved Crandall, normally a lineman, into the backfield to give him a reward for his hard work.

Given the chance to inherit a skills position, he promptly rose to the occasion, shedding tacklers as he surged right up the middle to the promised land.

Not finished there, Crandall capped the scoring when, back at his normal position, he plastered a La Conner ball-carrier, riding him down in the end zone for a safety that brought a merciful end to the scoring onslaught.

The game remains one of the true high points in Coupeville football history, not only for the score, but for the level of the opponent toppled, as well.

It was truly a perfect storm.

And, it could and should be inspiration for the 2016 Wolves.

Go out there tonight and play like the ’63ers and 50+ years from now someone (maybe even me) will be telling your tale of triumph.

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“I want to shatter all those records!!”

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , , on September 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Dawson Houston (John Fisken photo)

Wolf freshman QB Dawson Houston. (John Fisken photo)

Brad Sherman? Dawson Houston is coming for you.

The Coupeville High School freshman quarterback has a big goal for his prep career, and it involves shredding everything his Offensive Coordinator accomplished back in his own school days.

“For my career? Honestly I want to shatter all those passing records,” Houston said. “I’m not gonna lie.”

Right now, just like Sherman before him, he’s willing and eager to learn, content to make an impact at whatever level he finds himself.

“This season I want to at least start on JV,” Houston said.

While he may be young, Houston, who is one of three QB’s on the Wolf roster (with junior Hunter Downes and sophomore Shane Losey), is already a bit of a grizzled veteran.

He first stepped on the gridiron when he was six, and, even with a season lost to a broken leg, has put in seven years as a player.

“I started because it looked fun and I wanted to get out there with the players,” Houston said.

The game quickly became his favorite (he also plays basketball and baseball), one he immensely enjoys.

“I like everything. From kickoff to buzzer going off,” Houston said. “It’s just an amazing sport. It’s the best.”

Away from the game, he enjoys creative writing classes, and credits his fourth grade teacher, Patsi Waller (“she helped me become a good writer”) for getting him interested.

A fan of the action flicks “White House Down” and “London Has Fallen,” Houston likes going bowling with his family, but spends a lot of his time working on fine-tuning his quarterbacking skills.

“My strengths are my accuracy when throwing and making the right choices on some pass plays,” Houston said. “I need to work on my speed and hits more. Gotten a little rusty.”

Circling back around to his career goals, the young gunslinger already knows what he would do if his football dreams pay off down the road.

“My parents tell me if I want something I gotta earn it,” Houston said. “Ever since I was little I told my mom that when I get in the NFL (if I do) I’d get her a ruby red 64 1/2 Mustang.

“My dad? He wants season tickets.”

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