Breeanna Messner’s pink shoes have powerful mojo, but four straight games on the road — with one to go — is a bit much for any team. (Shelli Trumbull photo)
The Cedarcrest High School girls’ basketball team is a ranked team for a reason.
The Red Wolves, #10 in the 2A polls, can turn a game with a snap of the fingers, and that’s just what they did Friday night against visiting 1A Coupeville.
Holding just a slim 25-17 halftime lead, Cedarcrest completely dominated the second half, using a 37-7 surge to roll to a convincing 62-24 win in the Cascade Conference opener for both teams.
Playing its fourth straight game on the road, and second in as many nights, Coupeville finally ran out of gas. The loss dropped the Wolves to 1-3, as they open a brutal schedule with seven of their first eight games away from Whidbey Island.
At half time, Coupeville coach David King tried to warn his players that the second half would be much more pressure-packed. Sure enough, the heat came hard after both teams exited the locker room.
“We went into halftime only down eight and we talked about how Cedarcrest would turn up the pressure to start the third,” King said. “They did and we played faster than we wanted to. This caused us to turn the ball over and the Red Wolves got easy buckets because of this.”
Cedarcrest, an extremely athletic team, consistently beat the Wolves down the floor off of rebounds or immediately after Coupeville scores. The resulting barrage of easy buckets tipped the game in its favor.
Hailey Hammer paced the Wolves with eight points, while Makana Stone and Lauren Escalle each pumped in six. Jai’Lysa Hoskins (three) and Breeanna Messner (one) rounded out the limited scoring attack.
Hammer collected 10 rebounds, while Walstad snatched seven and Fabrizi and Hoskins coralled six apiece. Stone put together a nice stat sheet of her own, with five boards, four steals and three blocks.
Despite the loss, King and assistant Amy King both saw continued improvement from their squad.
“After the game we talked about how well we played and that everyone is coming in and giving 100% effort from the first minute until the final buzzer,” King said. “Amy told them, the score does not reflect how well we played a very good team.
“Her statement is so true,” he added. “Once we clean up our turnovers, we will get more shots up and more going in.”
And while the road-heavy start to the season has been rough, it will also help to toughen the Wolves.
“These early season games we are gaining experience and we are seeing things to start to come together,” King said. “The great thing about this team, we played on the road the night before, didn’t play our best game that night. But the girls put that behind them and went on the road again and battled a very good team in Cedarcrest.”
In JV action, a fast start wasn’t enough for the Wolves. Coupeville stormed out of the gate quickly, scoring 11 points in the first quarter, then had trouble shooting the rest of the way and eventually succumbed 58-25.
“We knew Cedarcrest was going to run the floor so started out with a full court press to help slow them down,” said coach Amy King. “They had two great players who were able to continually push as well as move the ball despite the press. Those players just took over the game, hitting 3’s, making steals and fast breaking the entire game.”
The Wolf JV, now 2-2 on the season, was led by Kacie Kiel and Madeline Strasburg, who each hit for six points. Wynter Thorne nailed a three-point bomb on her way to five, while McKenzie Bailey netted four and Monica Vidoni and Miranda Engle each tossed in a basket.
