Coupeville Sports

“I just want a hug!!”

“Bruise city, here we come!!”

 Momma Aimee Bishop is less than happy. “Oh hell no! Touch my baby and I’ll beat your butt all the way back across the bridge!!”

“You are so screwed, Bellingham!! You can run, but you can’t hide from the Bishopnator!”

Saturday’s girls’ basketball game between Coupeville and Meridian got a little bit chippy.

The visiting Trojans admirably hold up the creed of the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons of the late ’80s and early ’90s — they can only call a foul on one of us, so all five hit the player with the ball.

Wolf stars Amanda Fabrizi, Breeanna Messner and Julia Myers all took hard shots during the game — which Coupeville won 46-34 — but the most blatant came on the play above, captured by photo man John Fisken.

Come for the football tackle, stay to admire the way the Meridian player has locked her hands and is executing a full-body assault on Messner.

Somewhere, Dennis Rodman is shedding a tear or two of joy…

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     Julia Myers (middle), seen here on opening night, was relentless on defense Saturday afternoon for the Wolves. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Coupeville did what South Whidbey could not. Stay strong.

Unlike their Whidbey Island counterparts, who bent and then broke in the fourth quarter of a season-opening loss to Meridian, the Wolf girl hoopsters were made of tougher stuff.

Having seized the lead from the visiting Trojans Saturday afternoon, Coupeville widened the margin with big steals and even bigger blocks, romping to a 46-34 win.

The non-conference victory, coming in Coupeville’s second game in less than 24 hours, evened their early season mark at 1-1.

Facing down a Bellingham-based school that boasts twice as many students as CHS has walking its hallways, the Wolf girls used a 15-2 run in the second quarter to take the lead, then never let Meridian have it back.

Even as play got chippy and the Trojans started fouling with a vengeance, Coupeville stayed steady, draining six pressure-packed free throws as the clock ticked down.

Flying around on defense, the Wolves forced numerous turnovers, then attacked the basket with a vengeance, sending Amanda Fabrizi and Madeline Strasburg crashing hard to the hoop.

Fabrizi pumped in six of her team-high 13 points in the final quarter, opening play with an elegant long-range three before making off with a breakaway bucket off of a steal.

The rougher Meridian got — Fabrizi and Breeanna Messner took hard shots and the Trojans and the hardwood floor conspired to attempt to break Julia Myers’ face at one point — the more Coupeville took a deep breath and played hard-nosed, gritty ball.

Balancing precariously on her reconstructed knee, Myers was a whirling dervish, hauling in rebounds, snaring loose balls and staring down anyone stupid enough to try and muss up her uniform.

The few balls she didn’t get to were tracked down by Makana Stone, who soared above the crowd to snare an astonishing 18 rebounds.

The duo of Myers and Stone combined for seven blocks (well, actually eight, but a blind ref called a foul on a play when Stone executed a perfect all-ball rejection after launching herself over two rivals), while Strasburg and Messner made off with 13 steals between the two of them.

Meridian opened strongly, grabbing an 8-2 lead, before Hailey Hammer changed the flow of the game with one play.

One of Coupeville’s top two scorers a season ago, Hammer had been held scoreless Friday against Cedar Park Christian.

Saturday, it was a different story, and when she slashed through the paint, taking a Kacie Kiel pass and converting it into two points in one fluid motion, the game suddenly went in a new direction.

The Wolves closed the gap to two at the end of the first quarter, when Monica Vidoni snatched a missed free throw and took it back up strongly for her first varsity bucket, then Coupeville went on the rampage in the second quarter.

Mixing buckets from Fabrizi and Hammer, the Wolves ripped off a game-deciding 15-2 run, with several baskets set up by steals.

Hammer threw down eight to back up Fabrizi’s 13, while Strasburg popped for seven and Stone netted six. Messner and Kiel each added four, while Myers and Vidoni dropped in two apiece.

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   Julia Myers gets some in-game strategy from Wolf coach David King. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

There is no quit in #22.

With only seconds to play in a game already decided, Coupeville High School junior Madeline Strasburg, she of the motor that never stops, continued to bounce madly around the court Friday night, creating havoc wherever she went.

Dropping a long jumper to cap a 17-point performance on opening night, she then sprinted cross court, made 98.3% of a steal and spun towards the hoop, then stopped and slapped the ball hard after being called for the final foul in a night of 10,000 fouls.

That kind of refuse-to-die play, from Strasburg and teammates such as Kacie Kiel, who swished a gorgeous three-point bomb in the waning moments, should carry over long after the scoreboard was turned off on a 49-39 loss to visiting Cedar Park Christian of Bothell.

A huge disparity at the charity stripe (CPC hit 18 of 32 free throws, including 15 in the fourth quarter while Coupeville was 4 of 18 on the night) and a lot of missed chip shots from the field ultimately doomed the Wolves.

Which is not to say they didn’t go down swinging hard.

With all five players hounding the ball, Coupeville forced CPC into several shot clock violations and had a couple of memorable take-aways.

Sophomore Makana Stone collected two of them, gliding through the ozone, than exploding at just the right moment, leaving dazzled Eagles players clutching at air.

On the first one, she went high for a thunderous block, then blew down the court and caught the ball in stride for a sweeping layup.

Later, she snagged a ball in mid-air and fed it to Amanda Fabrizi for a dandy breakaway, mere seconds after Fabrizi had been on the opposite end of a similar play, turning a steal into a bucket for Breeanna Messner.

After trailing for the entire game, Coupeville pulled to within five at the start of the fourth quarter. Then came a slow death, as CPC spent the next hour going to the free throw line on virtually every play.

In between the hail of free throws, Wolf junior Julia Myers, returning to the court after a long battle with injury cost her last season, threw down a teeth-rattling block that left a dazed Eagles shooter on the ground.

Stone and Fabrizi backed up Strasburg with six points apiece while Messner popped for four. Kiel tossed in her three, Myers hit a bucket and Wynter Thorne added a free throw.

The game provided the regular season varsity debut for Kiel, Thorne, Monica Vidoni and McKayla Bailey.

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Carlie Rosenkrance (John Fisken photo)

Carlie Rosenkrance has big basketball shoes to fill.

The Coupeville High School freshman is following in the footsteps of older sister Cassidi, a two-time Wolf Female Athlete of the Year who sparkled on the hard court.

One game into her high school run, Carlie seems to be doing just fine with living up to the legacy, however.

Her team-high 10 points, all in the second half, sparked a late rally Friday night for the Wolf JV girls’ basketball squad.

It wasn’t quite enough to bring her team all the way back, unfortunately, as early shooting woes haunted Coupeville in a 21-15 non-conference loss to visiting Cedar Park Christian of Bothell.

Looking like a team playing its first game of the season, and missing a few players at that, the Wolves failed to register anything on the score board until midway through the second quarter, by which time they trailed 9-0.

Monica Vidoni broke the scoreless run when she took a pass from Tiffany Briscoe, who had just ripped a rebound out of the hands of a CPC player, and converted on the second chance.

With only a pair of buckets from Vidoni to show for the first 16 minutes of play, the Wolf JV regrouped in the locker room and finally started to get some snap in their offense in the second half.

Well, at least Rosenkrance did, as she scored all but one point (foreign exchange student Sophia Jebrail swished a free throw) of Coupeville’s second half output.

The prettiest of her five baskets came on a short jumper after Jebrail followed her own missed free throw shot by grabbing the board and dishing it to the silky smooth freshman as she slashed down the lane.

While the Wolves had trouble scoring at times, they did play stiff defense, with Briscoe and fellow frosh Skyler Lawrence dominating the boards.

Emily Coulter made hustle play after hustle play and Lauren Grove shared ball-handling duties with Rosenkrance, holding up very well under pressure.

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