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Pretty? No! A win? Yes!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged Allison Wenzel, Basketball, CHS Wolves, Port Townsend, strong words of wisdom, Vince Lombardi on February 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Skyler Lawrence gave Coupeville a much-needed spark Tuesday, snatching five boards. (John Fisken photo)

Amy King had to pull out the Vince Lombardi speech.

Disappointed by her team’s first-half performance Tuesday, the easy-going Coupeville High School JV girls’ hoops coach let loose a bit at halftime.

“It was an ugly, slow-start, Monday’ish-road-trip sort of game, even though it’s a Tuesday,” she said. “After some ‘strong words of wisdom’ during halftime, the girls were ready to play.”

And they did, using a second-half defensive stand to rally for a 29-20 win at Port Townsend.

The victory, the team’s third in the last four games, lifted the young Wolves to 7-9 overall, 5-2 in 1A Olympic League play.

Coupeville, which had crushed the RedHawks twice earlier this season, played fairly lackluster in the early going.

“Port Townsend came out on fire and our defense was flat-footed,” King said. “We were quiet. Not even rebounding.

“Offensively the ball moved slowly, not strong passes or cutting or anything,” she added. “We tried every man play we knew to try and get something to click.”

Trailing 14-12 at the break, something needed to change.

After King’s halftime talk (no word on whether any chairs were thrown … admittedly, as awesome as that would be, it’s also just as unlikely), things clicked, though.

With freshman Ashlie Shank leading the way, “driving the lanes, taking good shots and quicker on defense,” Coupeville pulled together to hold Port Townsend to just six second-half points.

Swing player Allison Wenzel “brought much needed energy to the floor” and Sarah Wright “ripped the rebounds like she has the past few games, even driving the ball up the floor.”

“Everyone contributed, feeding off of each other in the fourth and taking the win,” King said. “It was a tough one, but it was a win and we are happy for it.”

Wright paced Coupeville with eight points and 10 rebounds, while Shank (7), Wenzel (5), Lauren Rose (3), Skyler Lawrence (3), Maddy Hilkey (2) and Brittany Powers (1) also scored.

The Wolves controlled the boards, ripping down 40, with Brisa Herrera (3), Nicole Lester (2) and Lindsey Laxton (1) backing up Wright, Wenzel (5) and Lawrence (5).

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Perfection maintained!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged 1A Olympic League, balanced scoring, CHS Wolves, Makana Stone, Tiffany Briscoe on February 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Lindsey Roberts was one of seven Wolves to score Tuesday as Coupeville ran its league mark to 7-0. (John Fisken photo)

Getting a little something from everyone on the roster Tuesday night, the Coupeville High School girls’ basketball squad rolled past host Port Townsend 51-39.

The victory, the team’s fourth straight, lifted the Wolves to 13-4 overall, 7-0 in league play.

Having clinched its second straight 1A Olympic League title a game before, Tuesday was about maintaining momentum (and keeping their almost two-year unbeaten run in league play alive).

They did both, though not without a few hiccups in the early going.

“We struggled out of the gate on defense, a trend that has become all too familiar lately,” said CHS coach David King. “We allowed the RedHawks to get open jump shots or get to the basket.”

When they had the ball themselves, the Wolves attacked the basket, drawing fouls and putting several key Port Townsend players in foul trouble early.

The only problem is, Coupeville, which has been shooting free throws strongly of late, didn’t do so Tuesday, at least in the first quarter.

Clinging to a slim 11-10 lead after the first eight minutes, the Wolves found their groove after the break, throwing down 20 in the second quarter.

Coupeville spread its offense out, getting huge buckets from Tiffany Briscoe (“she came out strong at the beginning to get us going offensively”) Mia Littlejohn and Lindsey Roberts.

With Port Townsend forced to focus on more than one player, that opened up the game and Makana Stone immediately made them pay, throwing down 10 of her game-high 22 in the game-busting second quarter.

Up by 11 at the half, Coupeville cruised home with the win.

While he was happy his team didn’t give anything back, King would have liked to have seen a bit more of a killer attitude after halftime.

“At times we are battling ourselves and play slower than we should be,” he said. “We need to work on playing aggressive the whole game and not play in spurts.”

One aspect he was especially happy with was his team’s effort on the boards.

“Our rebounding effort tonight was so much better than the last time we played Port Townsend; that was great to see,” King said. “We also are sharing the ball well, with 7 of 10 players getting in the scoring column.”

Littlejohn drained nine to go with Stone’s 22, while Roberts, Tiffany Briscoe and Kailey Kellner all had five apiece. Lauren Grove banked home three and Allison Wenzel dropped in a bucket to round out the scoring.

Stone snatched 14 rebounds and blocked four shots, while Kellner had five rebounds and four assists. Grove dealt out three assists and rejected two shots.

Kyla Briscoe, Lauren Rose and Skyler Lawrence all saw floor time as well, with Rose snaring a rebound.

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One week, three big hurdles!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, Girls Basketball, tagged 1A Olympic League, Basketball, CHS Wolves, playoff positioning, standings on February 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Wolf boys’ basketball coach Anthony Smith has his squad in position to fight for a league title in the last week of the regular season. (John Fisken photos)

Girls coach David King, with valuable insight from his numbers guru, assistant coach/wife Amy, has guided CHS to a 15-0 mark in league play over the past two seasons.

And here they come down the backstretch.

Six days. Three games. The whole season on the line.

Sort of.

The Coupeville High School girls’ basketball squad has already clinched a second-straight 1A Olympic League basketball crown and is playing for perfection, not playoff positioning.

Win or lose this final week, they know what their postseason path will be.

Now, it’s all about wrapping up a second straight 9-0 league season and tying last year’s team with 15 regular season wins.

For the Wolf boys, it’s more complicated.

They know they’re in the playoffs, but they can still finish anywhere between first (with a bit of luck) and their current third.

Being #1 gets you a banner to hang in the gym and you skip right to the double-elimination portion of districts, where you would need only one win in two games to advance to regionals.

Finish #2 or #3 and the Wolves get a home playoff game, but also have to endure at least one loser-out game.

The Olympic League #2 will have one of those, while #3 gets two (if you survive the first game, of course).

Coupeville, which trails Port Townsend by two games and Chimacum by a game, needs to close as strongly as they did Friday, when it scored the final eight points and upended Klahowya 64-60.

They’ll get a great chance, as the final three games are against their league foes.

The remaining schedule:

Girls:

Tues-2 @ Port Townsend — 3:15 JV/5:00 varsity
Thur-4 @ Chimacum — 5 JV/3:15 varsity
Sat-6 Klahowya (SENIOR NIGHT) — 3:30 JV/5 varsity

Boys:

Tues-2 Port Townsend (SENIOR NIGHT) — 4:15 JV/6 varsity
Thur-4 @ Chimacum — 3:15 JV/5 varsity
Sat-6 @ Klahowya — 3:30 varsity/5:15 JV

Current standings:

Girls:

Coupeville 6-0, 12-4
Port Townsend 3-3, 6-10
Klahowya 2-4, 3-13
Chimacum 1-5, 4-13

Boys:

Port Townsend 5-1, 7-10
Chimacum 4-2, 6-11
Coupeville 3-3, 8-8
Klahowya 0-6, 1-16

To see what the district playoff brackets will look like, pop over to:

Girls: http://www.cascadeathletics.com/tournament.php?act=view&league=2&page=1&school=0&sport=12&tournament_id=1767

Boys: http://www.cascadeathletics.com/tournament.php?act=view&league=2&page=1&school=0&sport=3&tournament_id=1814

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“It was wild!!”

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged 1A Olympic League, Basketball, CHS Wolves, JV, Klahowya, refs suck, you bit me on January 29, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Wolf hoops stars (l to r) Ashlie Shank, Maddy Hilkey and Lindsey Roberts kill time before their games Friday. Later, Hilkey would be bit. Not by her teammates. (Amy King photo)

Some days you win, others you just get chomped.

Apparently Forks is not the only vampire-friendly town in the region, as the Coupeville High School JV girls’ basketball squad returned from Silverdale Friday with several new teeth marks to display.

Wolf frosh Maddy Hilkey was bitten (yes, really), swing player Allison Wenzel got a bloody lip a day after her birthday and super-scrappy Ashlie Shank added to her extensive “floor burn and bruise collection.”

Oh, and the Wolves were nipped 31-30 in a game in which, if they had ten more seconds, they probably would have won.

Charging back hard in the second half after a slow start, Coupeville got what should have, could have been a game-winner.

Brittany Powers nailed a three-ball with five ticks on the clock to put the Wolves up by one, only to have the refs swoop in to save the day for Klahowya.

As the Eagles tried to bring the ball up under pressure, Lauren Rose forced the ball-handler to travel.

Except that’s not how the refs chose to see it, instead whistling a foul on Coupeville and sending Klahowya to the line, where they slid two free-throws through the net to regain the lead.

The Wolves turned the ball over on the ensuing play, but quickly fouled, hoping for a final shot.

The ploy worked, for a second, as the free throw slid off the rim, but then it hit the head of a potential rebounder and shot away, allowing the clock to run out on CHS.

“It was wild,” said Wolf coach Amy King. “I told the girls, we beat them by one more than they beat us and we get them one more time (next Saturday).

“Quite the game.”

The Wolves (6-9 overall, 4-2 in league play) found themselves in a very physical game from the start.

“We got hit by all sides the first half,” King said. “They were majorly aggressive, going after every loose ball, steals, if we rebounded they had three players on the ball, they had a cherry picker down the floor the whole game.

“We couldn’t get any offense going and it took us a while to take a deep breath and dig in. Which we did.”

Swing player Kyla Briscoe led the second-half rally with strong play on defense, while Sarah Wright and Skyler Lawrence made Klahowya pay dearly down low.

To a player, the Wolves amped up their own play to meet the challenge.

“Skyler made them pay for ignoring her at the top of the key. Ashlie and Allison were on the floor more times than we could count,” King said.

“Lauren and Maddy got aggressive on not letting them just make the passes that they wanted and Brittany was a mad woman, voicing loudly when she had the ball,” she added. “Sound like a melee? Kinda was.”

Wright paced Coupeville with 12 points and 14 rebounds, while Lawrence (6), Briscoe (4), Shank (3), Powers (3), Wenzel (1) and Rose (1) also scored.

Shank ripped down nine boards while she and Briscoe each had two steals.

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So good, they did it again!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged 1A Olympic League, Basketball, championship banner, CHS Wolves, Makana Stone on January 29, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Top of the world, ma! 60% of Coupeville’s varsity roster celebrates a league title. (David King photo)

Clear space on the gym wall for another banner.

Staying undefeated all-time in 1A Olympic League play, the Coupeville High School girls’ basketball squad drilled host Klahowya 49-33 Friday to clinch a second straight league title.

The win lifted the Wolves to 12-4 overall, 6-0 in league play.

Regardless of how it does next week, when it closes the regular season with three games in five days, Coupeville will carry a #1 seed into the West Central District 3 tournament and start off in the double-elimination round.

The Wolves are guaranteed at least two playoff games, both of which will be on the road, with the first coming Feb. 17 at Sumner High School.

Win at least one of those and they advance to regionals.

To see the brackets, jump to: http://www.olympicleague.com/tournament.php?tournament_id=1767&sport=12

Friday night was all about taking care of business, and the Wolves showed up early (two hours or so), ready to liven up the quietest gym in the league.

While coach David King felt his squad was a little slow to get firing, Coupeville still led from opening tip to final buzzer.

“Our offense was flat in the first quarter, but you couldn’t tell by the score,” he said. “We played more side to side instead of attacking the basket.

“We did have great ball movement for the whole game and got some greats shots up,” King added. “We knocked down our open jumpers all game. We also did a good job of attacking the offensive boards for some put-backs.”

With big buckets from captains Kailey Kellner, Mia Littlejohn and Makana Stone to spark things, the Wolves surged out to a 15-10 lead after one, then stretched it to 30-20 at the break.

Klahowya stayed fairly close by bombing away from outside, while also converting on virtually all of its free-throw attempts in the first half.

The third quarter, though, signaled a sea change, as the Wolves came out of the break on fire.

“The start of the third was a whole different team,” King said. “Our movement on offense got better and our defensive effort really picked up.

“This game we got back to what makes us successful on offense,” he added. “Smart passes, moving the ball, and passing up a shot to get it to a teammate that has a better shot opportunity.

“When we move the ball like this it gets everyone involved.”

While Stone continued her torrid rampage across the land, tossing in a team-high 26 a game after she blistered the nets for 28, Coupeville’s continued good fortune depends on sharing the load between shooters.

“We have been working on taking the ball to the basket and not settling. We did that,” King said. “For us to be successful, others need to shoot and not rely on Makana; tonight we did that.”

He praised Kellner, who hit a couple of three-balls, Lindsey Roberts and Littlejohn for knocking down jumpers at key moments and a particular play that showcased the team’s ball movement skills.

On that one, Littlejohn had the ball at the top of the key and Tiffany Briscoe was on the low block.

There were defenders between the duo, but the sophomore point guard “found an opening between them and made one of the best passes all year,” setting up Briscoe for a bench-rousing bucket.

Stone “rose to the occasion when we needed a boost and provided sparks throughout the game,” on her way to 26 points, 19 rebounds and three blocks.

Kellner (8), Littlejohn (5), Roberts (4) Tiffany Briscoe (3) and Kyla Briscoe (3) also scored, while Lauren Grove had four rebounds and a team-high five assists.

Kyla Briscoe snared five boards, Littlejohn doled out four assists and swing players Allison Wenzel (one steal), Lauren Rose (one rebound) and Skyler Lawrence (two rebounds) all saw floor time in the fourth quarter.

As Coupeville heads down the stretch, pursuing a 9-0 league mark for the second straight year, King likes what he sees, while remaining very interested in how high his squad can fly.

“The great thing about this young team, that isn’t so young anymore, they are hungry and aren’t finished yet,” he said. “We still have work to do, but I’m very proud of this team.”

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