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Archive for the ‘Girls Basketball’ Category

Black ‘n blue? Oh, Sultan was in town…

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , on January 31, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Skyler Lawrence (left) and Briscoe, smiling now but ready to unleash defensive terror on their foes.

Skyler Lawrence (left) and Tiffany Briscoe may smile a lot, but they’re nobody’s pushovers. (Amy Briscoe photo)

It was one of those kinds of nights.

The sort of Friday night when you face a rough-and-tumble Sultan squad that’s not fond of making the long trip to Whidbey Island, and you get as many bruises as points scored.

That number would be 26 for the Coupeville High School JV girls’ basketball team, with at least 17 of those bruises going to freshman post Tiffany Briscoe, who spent much of the game being hammered to the floor.

But, since she’s a born-and-bred tough girl, she would bounce back up each time, smile mostly still intact on her face, and try to tuck renegade strands of hair back into place before the next freight train smacked into her.

Her resilience under fire — and the taco salad, cookies and cupcakes supplied to the team after the game by her mom, Amy — were the big highlights for a Wolf squad that scrapped to a 20-20 tie midway through the third, before eventually falling 39-26.

With swing players Wynter Thorne, McKayla Bailey and Monica Vidoni having moved up full-time to the varsity and freshman point guard Carlie Rosenkrance limited in her JV playing time, so she’d be available for varsity action if needed, the Wolves were looking for someone to step up and take the reins.

Lauren Grove did so, directing traffic for much of the game — when she wasn’t being smacked in the face or flung to the floor — and her two first-quarter buckets helped spur Coupeville to a 12-10 lead.

McKenzie Bailey’s three-point bomb from downtown capped the first quarter, while fellow guard Emily Coulter rained down a one-handed trey that kicked off the second half and made her dad scream like a (very happy) wild man.

The Wolves fell behind by eight near the end of the third quarter, then used a 5-2 run capped by a banked-in jumper from Skyler Lawrence to get back to five at 30-25.

After that, Coupeville’s shots went ice cold, however, allowing the visiting Turks to close the game on a 9-1 run.

If nothing else, the Wolves shared the ball well, with nine of their 11 players scoring.

Coulter, Grove and Rosenkrance led the way with four apiece, while Kailey Kellner and Bailey both added three. Rounding out the scoring list with a bucket apiece were Sophia Jebrail, Briscoe, Lawrence and Mattea Miller.

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Mission accomplished!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , on January 30, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Aura Corredor (center) with fellow basketball player Sophia Jebrail (left) and CHS cheerleader Camilla Rische.

Aura Corredor (center) with fellow basketball player Sophia Jebrail (left) and CHS cheerleader Camilla Rische.

Count it. Everyone has scored.

With a roster that has swelled as high as 15 or 16 players at times this season, Coupeville High School JV girls’ basketball coach Amy King has had a balancing act to conduct.

Try and get wins, but also get floor time for all of her players, regardless of skill level or experience.

One final bit of business — having every player score this season — was accomplished Wednesday when foreign exchange student Aura Corredor broke into the scoring column.

A newcomer to the sport, the native of Cali, Colombia slid a free-throw through the net during a 38-26 loss to visiting Friday Harbor, then got the full-on treatment from her teammates.

“The actual thrill of the night was when Aura tried to put up a shot and got fouled,” King said. “With this being her first year ever playing basketball and not getting a lot of time on the court so far this year, she was a bit nervous going to the free throw line.

“She’s been working hard on her shots in practice so we all had full confidence in her,” she added. “Her first shot went in and the bench erupted and the crowd got loud.”

Corredor followed up the free throw by collecting her first floor burn of the season (“It was exciting to watch her dive in and try for the rebound”) after narrowly missing her second shot.

The rest of the young Wolves imitated her, giving four hard-played quarters, but coming up short against a Friday Harbor team that used its taller players to control the game.

Coupeville played minus its two swing players — McKayla Bailey and Wynter Thorne — and with limited help from leading scorer Carlie Rosenkrance, as all three saw extended time in the night’s varsity game, which the Wolves won.

Kailey Kellner paced the CHS attack with nine points, including a three-pointer, while Mattea Miller and Lauren Grove banged away for four apiece. Sophia Jebrail (3), Rosenkrance (2), Tiffany Briscoe (2), Skyler Lawrence (1) and Corredor (1) rounded out the scoring chart.

With four games left on the schedule, King is excited with much of what she has seen this season, while a bit sorry to see it near an end.

“This team has a lot of talent and drive. We continue to fight and battle and play as a team,” she said. “And it isn’t always just the same few girls who step up every game and excel – they all have stepped up through this season and make me so proud.

“This group all has great attitudes and whether on the bench or the court they are supporting their team and working hard. I am so impressed with the improvement from them all,” King added. “Win or lose – they are a great group of girls and its sad that we have only one more week together.”

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Rain or merely sweet, sweet Falcon tears?!?!

Posted in Girls Basketball, Poking Langley, tagged , , , , , on January 30, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Do not trifle with Julia Myers (12). (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Do not trifle with Julia Myers (12). (Shelli Trumbull photo)

A fourth quarter comeback. A huge Wolf win. The Falcons pushed to the brink of playoff elimination.

Tuesday night was big for the Coupeville High School girls’ basketball team, as its players stepped up and stormed back, firmly stepping on their Langley rivals in what is likely the final time the two hoops squads will meet in Cascade Conference play.

With CHS planning to leave the 1A/2A league behind and join a new 1A division of the Olympic League, the Island schools may continue to meet in years to come. But, if they do, it will be in non-conference games (and, possibly, the postseason).

So, what better way to go out than sweeping the season series with a 48-38 win?

Well, I can think of one other way — taking a Shelli Trumbull photo and tweaking it with photo-editing software (http://www.picmonkey.com/).

Why? Cause it amuses me. And sometimes that’s all you really need.

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Julia Myers is here to save the day!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , on January 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Julia Myers

Julia Myers — she’s kind of a big deal. (Poster created from a John Fisken photo)

Julia Myers prevented David King from having a heart attack Wednesday.

Having watched his Coupeville High School girls’ basketball team fritter away a huge chunk out of a 17-point fourth-quarter lead over visiting Friday Harbor — which closed the game on a 14-3 run — King was growing new gray hairs at a terrifying rate.

Then Myers, the scrappiest of scrappy defenders, came through with two huge plays to seal the deal on a 40-34 non-conference win, and King could finally relax.

First the junior forced a Friday Harbor player into a crucial turnover with 16 seconds to play, then Myers out-jumped the world to haul in an offensive rebound with six ticks on the clock, allowing Coupeville to run the clock out.

The second win in as many days for the Wolves, it lifted them to 8-8 on the season, two more victories than last season, when Myers had to sit out the year while recovering from a nasty soccer injury.

Up until the fourth, Coupeville had been slowly, surely squeezing the life out of Friday Harbor.

With first Kacie Kiel, then Amanda Fabrizi shouldering the offensive load, the Wolves stretched their lead from one at the end of the first to nine at the half and 15 going into the fourth.

Madeline Strasburg seemed to put the final stamp on the game when she picked off a pass to open the fourth, spun up-court and found McKayla Bailey with a perfect lead pass.

Bailey’s running layup, her first basket as a varsity player, stretched the lead to 37-20.

But then things got a little off-kilter.

Strasburg took a poke to the eye, forcing her to the bench, and Friday Harbor suddenly decided to start hitting outside shots. As the lead begin to wither, concern spread through the CHS gym.

Makana Stone made the first stand, with a sweet layup over the outstretched hands of seemingly all five Wolverine defenders. That bucket snapped an 8-0 Friday Harbor run.

But things weren’t done yet, as the visitors surged again, putting together a 6-1 mini-run to further tighten the collar on King’s shirt.

Enter Myers, and exit the Wolverines.

Kiel was Coupeville’s go-to scorer early, raining down six points in the first quarter with a pair of long jumpers and a put-back on an offensive rebound.

Later, it was Fabrizi with the hot hand, as she opened the third with a high, arcing three-point shot that went in, came out, rolled around the rim 31 times, wobbled back and forth and then, finally, flopped through the bottom of the net.

The duo paced the Wolves with 10 points apiece, while Strasburg pumped in nine and Stone chipped in with five.

Breeanna Messner, Bailey and Carlie Rosenkrance also dropped in a bucket apiece, with Rosenkrance joining Bailey in getting her first varsity bucket.

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Second half surge (almost) saves Wolf JV girls!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , on January 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Erin Josue, seen here in an earlier game, and her teammates rallied in the second half Tuesday. (John Fisken photo)

   Erin Josue, seen here in an earlier game, and her teammates rallied in the second half Tuesday. (John Fisken photo)

Call it a split.

After badly losing the first half Tuesday at South Whidbey, the Coupeville High School JV girls’ basketball team responded to a halftime talk from coach Amy King and came out and convincingly won the second half.

Unfortunately, when both scores were added together, the first-half deficit was too much for the Wolves to overcome, as they fell 30-21. Still, the second half rally was a positive.

“I guess my stern motherly tone did something to them at halftime,” King said with a laugh. “Because we came out and played a much better half!”

Trailing 22-6 coming out of the break, Coupeville turned up its defensive heat, keyed by freshmen Lauren Grove and Mattea Miller.

“They did a great job on defense – Lauren put pressure on the ball and Mattea picked them up when they got past Lauren,” King said. “Mattea, Tiffany (Briscoe) and Kailey (Kellner) came up with some key stops and steals later in the game.

“We settled down a little on our offense and actually ran the plays, making better and stronger passes and better choices,” she added. “The girls who often forget to look at scoring started looking at the basket.”

Kellner and fellow frosh Skyler Lawrence controlled the boards in the second half, as the Wolves put a little bit of fear into the Falcons.

“Skyler had great rebounds and proved that when she wants the ball, just stay out of her way,” King said. “Kailey also went in for some hard-fought rebounds.

“A South Whidbey player made the mistake of trying to grab onto one that Kailey had and paid the price with landing on the floor. Hard.”

The second-half intensity made up for a “pretty flat” opening 16 minutes, and bodes well for Coupeville as they prepare to face off with Friday Harbor in a non-conference game Wednesday.

Miller paced the Wolves against South Whidbey with seven points, while Carlie Rosenkrance drained all six of her points in the fourth quarter. McKayla Bailey popped for four and Grove and Kellner each chipped in with a bucket.

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