Bessie Walstad (left), Haley Marx (center) and Lauren Escalle, seen here on Senior Night, went out with class and spirit Wednesday. (Robert Bishop photo)
Makana Stone goes airborne in pursuit of a loose ball. (Shelli Trumbull photos)
Hailey Hammer (hands raised) and Lauren Escalle apply defensive pressure.
Bessie Walstad went out a champion.
Her season and her remarkable career as a basketball player at Coupeville High School ended Wednesday night, but her legacy will live on. That rarity — a supremely talented player who always tried to deflect praise onto her teammates — she was always about more than baskets scored and rebounds grabbed.
Of course, she collected a lot of both along the way, and her final game, a 43-36 loss at South Whidbey in the district playoffs, featured her at her best.
In a game the Wolves led from the opening tip until about the three minute mark of the fourth quarter, when suddenly they couldn’t buy a bucket from any angle, Walstad played like a young woman who didn’t want to see her hoops career end.
The third quarter was her personal playground, as she drained a pair of jumpers, nailed a three-pointer, then capped a remarkable give-and-go with Breeanna Messner.
That bucket sprang to life off of a busted play, with Messner saving a ball by the length of her fingernails while two defenders tried to run her over. Messner-to-Walstad-to-Messner and finally back to Walstad, who sliced through the lane, twisting past an attempted shot block to lay the ball up and in.
Ringing up nine of her team-high 12 points in the quarter, Walstad was nothing short of brilliant and she staked Coupeville to a five-point lead with eight minutes to go.
The only other Wolf to score in the third was freshman Makana Stone, who pulled off what might have been the play of the season.
She snatched a ball out of a Falcon player’s grasp in mid-air, spun up-court, gliding down the court with elegant, long strides, then suddenly exploded up and over the lone South Whidbey player to get back, Madi Boyd, who, at five-foot-four, gave up six inches to Stone.
Boyd, a strong defender, made a stab at the ball, but Stone was gone before Boyd could fully get her hands up.
Leading 29-24 entering the final quarter, Coupeville suddenly stalled on offense. Lauren Escalle and Amanda Fabrizi banged home buckets off the glass, with Fabrizi’s shot staking the Wolves to their final lead at 33-30.
South Whidbey, benefiting from refs apparently deathly afraid to call a three-second violation, camped in the paint and put back a series of rebounds to take its first lead. Then the Falcons drained free-throw after free-throw in the waning moments, most from the serenely calm Boyd, while Coupeville clanked four straight from the charity stripe.
A gorgeous three-point bomb from Messner closed the gap at the end, but by that time South Whidbey was clearing its bench and basking in the knowledge that its season will live on for at least one more game.
Early on, it had looked like Coupeville would be the team to advance and play Blaine, which lost 33-32 to King’s Wednesday, as the Wolves exploded to an early 11-2 lead, with five different players scoring.
After South Whidbey rallied and tied it up at 15 shortly before the half, Coupeville pulled off a basket on a quick in-bounds pass from Walstad to Hailey Hammer, who banged home all eight of her points in the first half.
Walstad (12) and Hammer (8) were backed up by Messner (6), Stone (4), Escalle (4) and Fabrizi (2) in the scoring column.
The loss brought an end to the high school hoops careers of Walstad, Escalle, Haley Marx, Rhiannon Ellsworth, Jai’Lysa Hoskins and Katie Kiel.
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