Kyla Briscoe enjoys some rest stop shenanigans on the long trip to Wenatchee. (Amy King photos)
The most successful Wolf basketball squad in a decade.
The end, when it came, came quickly.
But, while it’s painful in the moment, once time has gone by, we will look back at all that transpired this season and marvel.
Far away from home, the most successful Coupeville High School girls’ basketball squad in a decade reached the end of its miracle run Saturday still surrounded by family, friends and neighbors.
A sizable chunk of Wolf faithful went East to the snow and heat of Wenatchee (and some pretty darn good burgers at a joint named Dusty’s, but I digress).
Once there, they kept the faith until the final buzzer, and then swept their young women up afterwards, tears mixing with joy over what they had accomplished.
The scoreboard was brutal, as a hyper-efficient Cashmere squad seeking its third straight trip to at least the state semifinals, ran Coupeville off the floor to a 61-25 tune.
The first, and only, lopsided loss the Wolves endured this season, it dropped their final record to 16-6.
Still, that is the most wins by any Coupeville hoops squad since the 2010 boys’ team also won 16 games, and it marked the first time CHS basketball had made it to the state playoffs since 2006.
Along the way these Wolves successfully defended their 1A Olympic League title, upended perennial power La Conner in a regular season thriller, won a playoff game for the first time in two seasons and captured the season-opening Friday Harbor Tip-Off Classic.
And they did it with a team that was raw, very young and lacking in previous varsity experience.
Entering the season, only three players had ever suited up for a varsity game, and two of their teammates were making a jump straight from playing JV last year to being varsity starters this season.
Sparked by their lone senior, the transcendent Makana Stone, who tossed in 15 Saturday to cap the third-best single-season performance in program history (427 points), the Wolves surprised their coaches, their fans, even themselves at times.
They jelled quicker than expected, players accepted their roles and showed often startling leaps forward, and they represent a program that, in its fourth season under David and Amy King, has reemerged as one to be respected.
Unfortunately, when they took the floor in the cavernous Wenatchee High School gym, they finally ran into a team too experienced, too deep, and too cutthroat to deal with.
The Bulldogs, who have back-to-back 3rd place finishes at state in which their only loss was to the eventual state champs (Lynden Christian and King’s), are better, far better, than any team Coupeville played this season.
They are quick, they attack from multiple angles, with a variety of players who can sting in a multitude of ways, and, once they put the hammer down, they don’t pick it back up until the post-game celebration.
Cashmere showed its ruthlessness from the opening tip (won for the 22nd straight time this season by Coupeville’s Stone), scoring on a quick inside cut, then knocking down two more buckets off of steals.
Down 7-0, the Wolves were staggered, the wind knocked right out of them, and they rarely had a chance to recover the rest of the evening.
Stone finally stopped the bleeding with a basket off of an in-bounds pass, and Coupeville mounted its only small bit of resistance to being steamrolled with a brief 8-7 “surge.”
Kyla Briscoe and Mia Littlejohn banged home buckets off of rebounds, Stone broke the press and slashed to the hoop for a score … and then it all pretty much ended.
Using a 14-0 run that started in the final two minutes of the first and continued through the first three minutes of the second, Cashmere stretched its lead to 28-8 and that was it.
Frustrated by a fierce defense, easily the most intense one they faced this season, the Wolves were unable to put together back-to-back buckets the rest of the game.
The Bulldogs, by contrast, mixed things up, dropping a trio of three-balls to cap the half, then working the ball inside in the second half.
The fourth quarter marked the end of one reign and perhaps the start of another.
Stone, who has been a star since day one of her freshman year, and who has been a benevolent big sister to her young flock this season, reaching out to each one with words of praise, a smile, a pat on the back, closed her run with two plays.
A free throw with a little over a minute to play marked Coupeville’s final point this season and Stone’s final point in the red and black.
At 19.4 points per game this season, she had a higher average than Brianne King did when she scored 446 in 2000-2001 and 442 points in 2002-2003, but King’s teams played 24 and 28 games in those years.
A moment after reaching out to freshman Sarah Wright — making her varsity debut on the season’s biggest stage — and giving her an encouraging, emphatic hand slap, Stone picked up her fifth and final foul.
Walking off the court with 43.7 seconds to play, she received a spontaneous standing ovation from the Wolf fans and her bench, a testament to a young woman who soared while always looking to pull her teammates up with her to share the moment.
Wright, one of the players who hold the keys to future success, earned two minutes of floor time after a season of hustle and hard work at the JV level, and she exploded off the bench.
Two seconds into her life as a varsity player she ripped down a rebound, and she took full advantage of her opportunity, snatching three caroms before the clock ran out.
Kailey Kellner netted a three-ball to back Stone in the scoring column, while Littlejohn, Kyla Briscoe and freshman Lindsey Roberts each added a bucket.
Tiffany Briscoe tickled the twines for a free throw while Lauren Grove, Allison Wenzel, Lauren Rose, Skyler Lawrence and Wright gave their all until the end.
Wolf JV players Ashlie Shank, Maddy Hilkey and Ema Smith made the trip as well, working the camera, recording stats and getting a feel for tourney play.
As they left the court, and afterwards, in the locker room and the hallway, the Wolves were sad, as you would expect, losing a game and their leader, who will graduate and head off to play college ball.
But, underneath the sadness, in some of the eyes, there was a glint.
A glint of steel. A resolve to work. To put in the time and effort in the off-season, to get bigger, strong, quicker, more efficient.
It was the look of players, of a team, that wants to come back. That will be back.
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