Matt Stevens and the Coupeville defense stood tall Friday, as the Wolves came dangerously close to toppling King’s in a gridiron thriller. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Do not go gentle into that good night … especially if a deer is leading the way.
Throwing the fear of God into the Christian school boys, the Coupeville High School football squad came within a play or two of pulling off one of the great comeback wins of all time Friday, before running out of time in a 20-14 loss to visiting King’s.
The Wolves almost made it all the way back from a 20-0 fourth-quarter deficit, scoring two late touchdowns, one with a major assist from a hoofed mammal who wandered onto the gridiron in search of an apple, then ended up possibly dropping road apples as the lead blocker on a 95-yard TD run.
The narrow loss, coming in the North Sound Conference opener for both teams, drops the Wolves to 0-1 in league play, 3-2 coverall.
King’s (1-0, 1-4), Cedar Park Christian (1-0, 3-1) and South Whidbey (1-0, 4-1) are tied for the early conference lead, while CHS, Sultan (0-1, 1-4) and Granite Falls (0-1, 0-5) sit a game back.
South Whidbey nipped Sultan 21-20 on a Kody Newman Hail Mary pass in overtime Friday, while CPC held off Granite 20-8.
The battle in Cow Town belonged to the visiting Knights for three quarters, as senior running back Josiah Seirs slammed across the line for a TD run in each quarter.
Other than a clanked PAT after the second score, King’s was in control, giving up a fair amount of yards to the Wolves, but bending and not breaking.
And then the deer appeared and everything went all to holy heck.
It came on the very first play of the fourth quarter, as Sean Toomey-Stout waited to receive a kickoff from the Knights, who had scored with a second on the clock in the third frame.
As “The Torpedo” bounced in place, the ball went airborne, then it plunged from the sky, right as our deer hero, who’ll we call Jebediah, came bounding from behind the soccer goal in the far end zone.
The football hit Toomey-Stout in the fingers, skipping away. The crowd wailed.
And Jebediah the deer, doing his best Arnie, screamed “Come with me if you want to live!!” and headed up the right side of the field on a dead run.
Circling back to snatch the ball off the turf at about the four-and-a-half yard line, Toomey-Stout sprinted from left to right, as Jebediah almost creamed the King’s kicker at mid-field.
Shedding one would-be tackler, and then another, and then two more, “The Torpedo,” under a full head of steam now, whipped down the same path carved out by the deer, almost catching his unexpected lead blocker.
As Toomey-Stout roared into the end zone, the crammed CHS stands rocked so enthusiastically the sound system in the press box bounced two inches off the counter it sits on.
Meanwhile, PA announcer Willie Smith, stopping in mid-chomp on a mini candy bar, dropped a perfectly-timed (and probably not fully-appreciated) “Oh, deer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
And Jebediah?
He stopped for a moment right outside the end zone in which the Wolves were now pummeling Toomey-Stout, then leaned in and whispered to a CHS coach, “I’ll see you guys next week. Just leave the apples in the usual place.”
With Wolf soccer star turned football kicker Derek Leyva hammering the PAT kick high into the night sky to cap the play, a potential blowout was suddenly transformed.
And Coupeville responded.
Leyva pinned King’s deep on its side of the field with his kickoff, before the Wolf defense forced a three-and-out to get the ball back.
With the ball in his hands, Coupeville QB Dawson Houston led his team downfield, mixing a couple of quick swing passes with a couple of power runs from Toomey-Stout.
Facing third-and-goal from the 10, Houston dodged the incoming pressure, stood tall and pegged a pass through the heart of the defense to Gavin Knoblich, who made a sensational jumping catch to bring his squad back within a single score.
After Levya tacked on another extra point, he mashed a long, slicing kick-off, giving Matt Hilborn time to haul butt down-field and level the returner as he made his first tentative step.
Pinned deep in their own territory once again, King’s went to a pass play on third-and-six, but Wolf senior Alex Turner snapped off the receiver’s head, hauling him down well short of the marker and forcing a punt.
Five minutes on the clock, the ball in their hands, and their still-new stadium shaking like Candlestick Park during the earthquake that rocked the ’89 World Series, the impossible seemed possible.
A comeback for the ages, against one of the private school boogeymen that made life miserable for Coupeville back in the day.
It was there, and then it wasn’t, as not every prayer gets answered.
Houston hit Knoblich on another pass play, but a pair of sacks pushed the Wolves back and CHS couldn’t pull off a big play on fourth down, despite a little razzle dazzle with Houston lobbing the ball to Dane Lucero, who then fired an incomplete pass downfield.
King’s needed two first downs to run out the final three-minutes plus, and they got them, barely, with Seirs plunging through the line to convert on a fourth-and-five to cap things.
Through the first three quarters, Coupeville moved the ball well, with Toomey-Stout and Hilborn making for a very-effective one-two rushing attack.
But an interception, a missed field goal and a reffing brain fart, on which the guys in stripes ignored blatant interference by King’s on a punt, kept the Wolves from getting the ball into the end zone through the first 36 minutes of action.
While Seirs rambled in for his scores, the Wolf defense was electric most of the night, with Turner, Lucero, Matt Stevens, Andrew Martin, Gavin St Onge, Ryan Labrador, Chris Battaglia and Co. keeping the Knights largely bottled up.
Hilborn stuffed a King’s drive at the very last moment, stripping the ball and recovering the fumble inside Coupeville’s 10-yard line, while Shane Losey and Knoblich teamed up on the most thrilling play not involving a deer.
That came mid-way through the third period, when Losey, defending a pass, clipped the ball with one hand, popped it skyward, then juggled it from hand to hand (all while still in motion) before bumping it in the direction of Knoblich.
Spearing the gift out of the air, the Wolf junior pulled in the interception as he, Losey and the King’s receiver all went to the turf in a pile.
While he wanted a true win, and not just a moral victory, Coupeville coach Marcus Carr was still pleased with the never-say-die attitude shown by his team.
“It was an outstanding effort by our guys,” he said. “It’s a process and we want to keep improving, which is what we’re doing.
“The fight is there, we just need to tighten things up a bit on some of our drives; our running backs played hard and other than a play or two, our defense played outstanding – I’m amped at that,” Carr added. “I’m as happy as I could possibly be after losing a game.”
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