Ashlie Shank, mere seconds before she won the game for Coupeville Friday night. (John Fisken photo)
The youngest one is making a play for the throne.
Coupeville High School freshman Ashlie Shank has been living in the athletic shadow cast by older brothers Matt and Brian, but Friday night she seized the spotlight all for herself.
Nailing a running jumper a tick before the buzzer, she completed a wild final play and lifted the Wolf JV girls’ basketball team to a thrilling come-from-behind 26-24 win over visiting Klahowya.
The victory, which kept CHS girls’ basketball perfect in 1A Olympic League play (the Wolf varsity and JV are a combined 20-0 since the league debuted last year), lifted the JV to 2-3 overall, 1-0 in league play.
And it only happened thanks to a game-ending surge and a final play that worked to perfection.
Having snagged the ball with the game tied and the clock madly ticking down, Ema Smith shot up the right side of the court.
As a defender lurched at her, the Wolf frosh rose up and lobbed the ball to Kyla Briscoe, who caught it, whirled and found Shank in stride.
With no hesitation at all, Shank went straight at the hoop, pulling up at the last second and letting fly with a soft lil’ jumper that splashed nothing but net.
As the ball dropped through, hitting the floor, the clock went under two seconds, and all Klahowya could do was throw a full-court desperation heave that only traveled less than half the distance before crashing back to Earth.
Shank’s dagger capped an 8-2 run to close the game for the Wolves.
After leading for the entire first half, Coupeville briefly lost the advantage in the third, then regained it, only to give it right back thanks to a stretch of ice-cold shooting.
Trailing 22-18, the Wolves got huge plays from Smith, who banged home a rebound to cut the margin to two, and Briscoe, who hit back-to-back jumpers.
Her only two buckets of the game, the first one forced a 22-22 tie, then the second one re-knotted the game at 24 after Klahowya had reclaimed the lead off of an offensive rebound.
The Eagles had the ball and a chance to take the lead, but failed against a hawkish defense employed by five Wolves who had listened to coach Amy King in the timeout huddle and came out aggressive but smart.
That set up Smith to Briscoe to Shank, which will now reside in lore when folks talk about great finishes at Coupeville hoops games.
Shank and Lauren Rose paced the Wolves with seven points apiece, with Rose dropping all of her points in the first half, when she was a one-woman wrecking crew.
Her steal and breakaway bucket, coming on the heels of a softly arcing jumper from Maddy Hilkey, gave Coupeville its biggest lead at 5-0.
Smith and Briscoe added four apiece, while Hilkey and Allison Wenzel each chipped in with a bucket to round out the scoring stats.
Skyler Lawrence didn’t score, but thoroughly controlled the paint, ripping down rebound after rebound, staring down any Eagle who dared to put a finger on the ball.
