Nick Streubel and his much-cleaner big sister Amanda, after Saturday’s rumble in the manure-scented mud in Port Townsend.
It was a hell of a way to end a season.
Football can be bold and beautiful and it can be brutal and unforgiving. It can send fans skyrocketing with a 97-yard kickoff return for a touchdown and it can crush dreams with a single tyrannical gesture by a putz of a control-freak official.
Saturday night on the manure-scented mud in Port Townsend’s ramshackle football stadium, Coupeville High School found all of that and more, as a grand opera of dizzying highs and gut-crushing lows played out. And while the final score, 56-39 in favor of host Chimacum, wasn’t perfect, it failed to crush the spirits of the Wolves, who fought until the final moment.
By the time a nearly three-hour slug-fest had played out and a large contingent of Wolf fans were ankling for the last ferry back, there had been a referee tackled (possibly on purpose), the sight of big, bad CHS lineman Nick Streubel taking a pitch and stiff-arming his way through a pack of Chimacum tacklers and 407 net all-purpose yards and four eye-popping touchdowns from Jake Tumblin (three on passes from Gunnar Langvold).
It also featured the deplorable sight of senior Wolf captain Caleb Valko alone on the sideline, left to watch the final four minutes of the game but unable to haul his battered body back into action in the final moments of his high school career thanks to a Napoleonic ref who threw him out of the game.
In a high-scoring affair marred by an officiating crew with serious anger issues, officials openly screamed at Valko and Danny Savalza, reportedly told another player they didn’t realize they would have to learn sign language since all of Coupeville’s players were deaf and got mild-mannered Wolf coach Tony Maggio so wound up he removed his ball cap 47 times during one game-halting huddle with the refs.
Valko, who spent part of the game flat on his back, with another player stretching his legs out, repeatedly hobbled back into play and asserted his presence. He deserved better than to be run because the refs “didn’t like his language.”
And he got it, moments later, when the Wolves pulled off a pass and pitch play that ended up in the hands of human mud ball Streubel, who came one forearm blast to the helmet away from breaking his moment in the offensive spotlight into a touchdown.
The play had been set up to be run as a farewell for Valko, and, as he came back to his feet, Streubel turned and gave the thumbs up sign to his linemate, who stood five feet behind the sidelines, arms crossed, helmet off, face showing a wealth of emotion.
It was a poignant gesture in a game that started as a bar brawl, threatened to turn into a blowout, and then morphed into a who-will-score-last light show in the fourth quarter.
Chimacum had barely finished celebrating their opening touchdown when Tumblin blew up the joint on the ensuing kickoff. The ball skipped behind him, and, for a moment, it looked like the Wolf junior would let the ball go through the end zone. Then he snapped up the ball, hit the rocket boosters and, dodging and juking defenders all the way, blew down the left sideline for an epic 97-yard run.
From there it turned into a defensive brawl for a bit, with Valko recovering a fumble and Coupeville blocking an extra point. Josh Bayne hit Bryce Fleming on a 17-yard scoring strike and the game was knotted at 13.
Then, things fell apart for a bit, as Chimacum collected four of the next five touchdowns, broken up only by a 67-yard touchdown catch-and-run from Langvold to Tumblin. Down 42-19 with 11 minutes to play and the rain starting to splash down, things looked bleak.
Enter the Langvold to Tumblin air express, as the duo broke off scoring plays of 47 and 83 yards. Coupeville roared back to life with three touchdowns in five minutes, but the host Cowboys were able to blunt their final charge with two more scores of their own.
Along the way, senior Kole Kellison, returning to action after missing several weeks with injuries, laid down a beautiful body slam on a Chimacum defender and “tackled” one of the officials who got himself caught in a frenzy in front of the end zone.
That play, in particular, cemented his status as a Wolf Nation favorite. The only disappointment came from the fact the official that went down wasn’t the most annoying of the bunch.
“White hat is grumpy! He needs to go home and take a nap! Or maybe a Xanax,” was a popular refrain as Coupeville fans headed back to the ferry, where Streubel, covered in gobs of mud, made a playful attempt to get his grit all over assistant coach Dustin Vanvelkinburgh and cheerleader Julia Felici handed out home-made cupcakes to her band of sweaty, stinky, mud-encrusted warriors.
Warriors who went out, heads held high. Unlike the refs.
