Coupeville Sports

Raymond Beiriger (52) and teammates celebrate beating South Whidbey and reclaiming The Bucket last season.

As spring football practice kicks into high gear, we’ll be taking a look at a variety of players from Coupeville High School, with an emphasis on younger players and rising stars.

Raymond Beiriger is hard to pin down.

The Coupeville High School senior has speed and agility, which comes in handy at all of his positions and helps to balance out his belief that “I would love to work on my size; I am a small twig compared to some of the other seniors.”

But the second-year man, who bounces between wing and running back on offense and “money” on defense, has that ability to make people miss. Which means you don’t have to be as big as six-four, 312-pound teammate Nick Streubel.

“I find myself to be quite agile,” Beiriger said. “I am able to twist out of tight spots.”

While he hasn’t played as long as some of his teammates, Beiriger has quickly come to love the sport.

“I started last year and I started to prove to me and everyone else that I could,” he said. “I like everything. It’s a thrill, a rush, it’s exciting.”

Beiriger, who enjoys being outdoors (walking, running, freestyle rock climbing), picks math and weight training as his favorite classes. Which is good, since his goal is “to become faster and stronger and to improve myself from last year.”

Whether he’s on the gridiron or busy doing something else, he also knows he has a large group of fans and supporters in his extended family.

“My grandma, my mom, my dad, my step dad and my grandpa all push me to do my best and push myself to become better,” Beiriger said.

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  Nick Streubel (left) and Jake Tumblin tour the University of Montana. (David Streubel photo)

They’re exploring their options.

Fresh off a team football camp in Eastern Washington, Coupeville High School senior football stars Jake Tumblin and Nick Streubel swung by the University of Montana to check out its facilities.

As word of the Wolves whippin’ up on opponents continues to filter out, expect more college visits, official and unofficial, for the Wolf duo and other Class of 2014 CHS studs like Brett Arnold, Gunnar Langvold and Ben Haight.

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The Lord brothers.

As spring football practice kicks into high gear, we’ll be taking a look at a variety of players from Coupeville High School, with an emphasis on younger players and rising stars.

In the Lord(s) we trust.

That’s the motto for Coupeville High School football coaches, as they hope for sophomore twin brothers Jake and Josh Lord to deliver big-time as linemen.

Both play at guard, with Jake on the left and Josh on the right. There’s a chance they might branch out, though, as Jake seems interested in seeing double duty.

“My speed is decent and I can catch the ball,” Jake Lord said. “I feel like I would make a good tight end.”

The duo first picked up the football bug as freshmen, and have quickly come to enjoy their new sport.

“I joined because I liked the sport,” Josh Lord said. “I like to keep the quarterback safe.”

“I started because I wanted to see what it was like to play on an actual football team,” added Jake Lord. “After the experience, I decided to play again and here I am this year as a Coupeville Wolf.”

They both double as basketball players, are united in being fans of the movie “Happy Gilmore” and are big music fans, while Jake enjoys weight training class and Josh is the man to call when a lawn needs to be mowed.

But the gridiron is where their passion lives. Both list winning a state title as one of their goals, and both are hugely committed to helping Coupeville build a winner.

While also laying some people out.

“The part of football I enjoy is getting to hit some kids in the game,” Jake Lord said. “There is nothing better than the moment when you get to hit people as hard as you can and the adrenalin you get from doing it.”

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The Booker brothers, freshman Ramon (left) and junior Tyree, making their Wolf debuts. (Terrence Booker photo)

Lookin’ sharp.

It might have only been a spring scrimmage, but Coupeville High School made a statement.

Squaring off with 3A Oak Harbor and 2A Sedro-Woolley, which is coached by former Wildcat legend Dave Ward, the 1A Wolves not only held their ground Friday, they won the night in many people’s opinion.

While Coupeville coach Tony Maggio was a little more restrained than some of his former players, who took great delight in trash-talking the bigger schools online afterwards, he was notably pleased with the effort he saw.

Two plays in particular stood out.

In one, the 6-foot-4, 312-pound Big Hurt, senior lineman Nick Streubel, picked off a pass (“Streubel intercepted a pass! For real! And would have housed it if we were returning”).

In the other, much-lighter junior Josh Bayne played the big man, nailing a guy with a tackle, bodily lifting him and slamming into the turf “WWE style,” prompting his coach to bellow “WOW! What a stick! LOVE IT!!”

It was that way all around, as the Wolves, seeing their first live action since the graduation of leaders like Caleb Valko and Danny Savalza, came out ready to rumble and flat-out dominated the bigger schools.

“Jake (Tumblin) was a missile, Wade (Schaef) caught some tough passes, we did very good,” Maggio said.

Senior Gunnar Langvold and junior Tyree Booker, a transfer from Oak Harbor, both saw time at QB and “both did well.”

Also singled out for their play were sophomore Wiley Hesselgrave and senior Jared Dickson (“They KILLED it all night at linebacker, nobody could get outside of them, and our db’s were lights out”) and junior Carson Risner (“he snapped very, very well for us in the pistol set, super job!”)

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Nick Streubel (left), AKA The Big Hurt, will lead the Wolves into battle in 2013.

Jake Tumblin is Coupeville’s most explosive offensive weapon.

And the big question — will QB Gunnar Langvold ignore stupidity and embrace leadership, or will I plant my boot in his rear? Be smart, Gunnar. (Mekare Bowen photo)

The future officially starts now.

Well, 5:30 PM Friday to be precise, which is when next fall’s Coupeville High School football squad hits the field at Oak Harbor to scrimmage two much bigger schools.

The host Wildcats, a 3A school, had 105 students turn out for football in the early days of spring practice. Oak Harbor lost 40 players to graduation, which is just about what the 1A Wolves will carry on their full roster, seniors to freshmen, this fall.

The third team to hit the turf tonight is 2A Sedro-Woolley, which is coached by former ‘Cat head man Dave Ward.

He will be facing off with two of his proteges from Oak Harbor’s 4A state title days, in fellow coaches Jay Turner (OHHS) and Tony Maggio (CHS).

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