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Archive for the ‘Football’ Category

Oh my!! Big O comin’ home!!

Posted in Football, tagged , , , on August 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Oscar Liquidano (right) with younger brother Uriel during last year's soccer season. (John Fisken photo)

Oscar Liquidano (right) with younger brother Uriel during last year’s soccer season. (John Fisken photos)

Liquidano holds down the paint.

Liquidano holds down the paint.

Big O is on his way back home.

Shortly after he was named a captain for this year’s Coupeville High School football team, Oscar Liquidano’s family left town in the spring and moved to Las Vegas.

That left the Wolves one captain down, as Liquidano, the team’s biggest lineman, was supposed to share honors this year with fellow seniors Carson Risner, Aaron Wright and Josh Bayne.

Now, things have taken a huge swing for the positive, as word hits that Liquidano is returning to Coupeville for his senior year.

Getting back a big, veteran two-way lineman who will work alongside Risner, Wright, Matt Shank and others, is a huge boost for the Wolf football team.

“I can’t like this enough!!!” wrote jubilant CHS quarterback Joel Walstad when the news hit Facebook.

Liquidano, who also plays basketball and soccer, is expected to reach town by Saturday. He’ll be a couple of practices behind, but has time to catch up before the start of the season.

While nothing is set in stone, the young man at the center of things was cautiously thrilled Thursday night.

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Liquidano said. “I have faith in God that it will happen.”

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Big leg, big dreams!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, Boys Soccer, Football, tagged , , , , on August 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Joel Walstad will lead the Wolves into a new league this season. (John Fisken photos)

  Senior QB/kicker Joel Walstad will lead the Wolves into a new league this season. (John Fisken photos)

Walstad fires a jumper last season.

Walstad fires a jumper last season.

Joel Walstad is about to step into the spotlight.

The third of three children in a highly-successful athletic family (following older siblings Tim and Bessie), Joel has been a strong player in all three of his sports — football, basketball and soccer.

But, as he enters his senior year at CHS, it will be a whole new ballgame, as he becomes The Man and not just a supporting player.

First up is the gridiron, where he’ll replace the graduated Gunnar Langvold as Coupeville’s starting quarterback.

While still finding time to limber up his leg and deliver extra points, field goals and punts for the Wolves.

Walstad can strike from many different directions, though he is still looking to fine-tune his skill set.

“My strengths are kicking and quickness,” he said. “I would like to improve on my passing and reading the defense.”

Now in his sixth season as a football player, having first picked up the sport as a seventh grader (“It looked like it would be fun”), Walstad wants to make an impact in his final go-around.

“Team goal is an (Olympic) League championship,” Walstad said. “Individual goals would be to kick a 40-yard field goal in a game and to throw for less than 5 interceptions on the year.”

The senior signal caller points to his family, including parents Shawn and Renee, and “all my coaches” as having shaped his game, and his life.

A big fan of history class who likes to spend most of his free time hanging out with friends, Walstad would give the slight edge in his sports world to hoops — “Because I have played it the longest” — but it’s football that he hopes might open doors at the next level.

“I would like to try to go to college for kicking,” he said. “I kicked a 55-yard field goal one time. You can ask Coach (Tony) Maggio!”

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It begins!!

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , on August 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Senior co-captain Carson Risner (John Fisken photos)

  Senior captain Carson Risner works on hand-offs with his quarterback. (John Fisken photos)

Joel Walstad

  Joel Walstad barks out signals while Lathom Kelley prepares to unleash a little thing he calls “Super Fast Blinding Speed.”

Someone may have forgotten to use sun screen...

Someone may have forgotten to use sun screen…

Jose

Jose Castro prepares to explode off the line.

Cameron Toomey-Stout

Freshman Cameron Toomey-Stout flies around the corner during a drill.

Did CHS head coach Tony Maggio sleep at all the night before the first day of practice? Probably not.

  Did CHS head coach Tony Maggio sleep at all the night before the first day of practice? Probably not.

One eye on the field, one eye on the cameraman.

One eye on the field, one eye on the camera. OK, maybe both eyes on the camera…

Vacation is done.

The first wave of Coupeville High School athletes hit the practice field Wednesday, officially kicking off the 2014-2015 school athletic year.

Today it was Wolf football. In five days, girls’ soccer, volleyball and boys’ tennis will join them.

The first official game: Friday, Sept. 5 when CHS welcomes South Whidbey to Cow Town for a football game that will decide the fate of the universe itself.

And thus it begins.

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“All I want this year is to win!!”

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , on August 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Lathom Kelley (John Fisken photo)

Lathom Kelley (John Fisken photo)

In just under 24 hours Coupeville High School will kick off a new fall sports season with the first day of football practice.

The Wolves hit the practice field 1 PM Wednesday, starting two-a-days.

Opening night is Sept. 5, when South Whidbey comes to town.

While the two schools are now in different leagues, with CHS jumping from the 1A/2A Cascade Conference to the 1A Olympic League, the game is still for Island bragging rights and possession of The Bucket for the next year.

One of the players most excited to get on the field and start is Wolf junior Lathom Kelley.

As a freshman, he and his teammates went to Langley and claimed the trophy, while last year The Bucket went back South after the Falcons won a foggy battle in Cow Town.

Kelley’s thoughts on this, Football Eve:

I’m very excited for football this year.

I won’t lie, having South Whidbey as our first game this year is going to be a great way to start off our season.

Through my past years in football I have noticed a lack of excitement, but I’m hoping that this year, being in a new league and kicking South Whidbey’s butt for our first game, will raise the level of excitement and effort throughout the season.

I am pretty big on practicing how you play, so these next two weeks are going to be very difficult with two-a-days and gold card sales (get ahold of me if you want one!).

All I want this year is to win.

Freshman year we won two games, sophomore we won four. This year I want all of them to be wins.

What I want more than anything, though, is to have every single person on the team to want it as bad as I do.

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Tip your hat to Coach Bob!!

Posted in Basketball, Football, Happy birthday, tagged , , , , , on August 19, 2014| 1 Comment »

Bob Martin, at work and rest.

Bob Martin, at work and rest.

Bob Martin is the unsung backbone of Coupeville sports.

Whether coaching football and basketball, working with the high school boosters or the Boys and Girls Club, volunteering for Race the Reserve road crew work or simply making sure the lights stay on and the PA system works in the CHS gym during games, he’s everywhere at once.

In a small town, you need people like Bob, who are willing to put a lot of time and work in for very little pay, to make things work.

He may not always be in the spotlight, which he seems quite happy about, but he is indispensable.

Plus, he upholds a proud tradition honored by myself and Wolf football coach Tony Maggio, among others, of wearing shorts almost 24-7-365, rain and/or snow be danged.

Good man.

So, on this, his birthday, take a moment to give a hand to the quiet man of Coupeville sports, the guy who helps keep everything running while building for the next generation.

There is a landmark that sits in front of the CHS gym — a rock that is spray painted every time someone has something to get off their chest.

When it comes to Wolf sports, from the pee wees to the big kids, Bob Martin is the real-life embodiment of that rock.

Just don’t go spray painting him any time soon…

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