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Archive for the ‘Girls Basketball’ Category

(Truly) young guns hang tough in opener

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , , on May 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Coupeville 8th grader Madison McMillan, playing on the high school JV team, led her squad in scoring in their season opener. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Say hello to the next generation, early.

Unlike a lot of other Northwest 2B/1B League schools, Coupeville High School is fielding two girls basketball squads this season.

With program numbers down, the Wolves salvaged their JV team by allowing 8th graders to play high school ball, and more than half the girls in uniform Thursday were middle school students by day, high school hoops hotshots by night.

And the (truly) young guns held up well, accounting for two-thirds of their team’s points in a closer-than-it-sounds 35-24 loss to visiting Orcas Island.

Coupeville was within a point through the first two quarters, and trailed by just three heading into the fourth, but that final frame stung, with the older Vikings closing on a 12-4 tear.

Coaching her team in a game for the first time in 15 months, Wolf JV hoops guru Megan Smith was realistic with her expectations, and pleased with much of what she saw.

“We had some really good moments of greatness and some of not so much,” she said. “We are super young with not a lot of players that have experience, and that’s okay, we just have some more work to do is all.

“It was good to see them out on the court and actually playing the game!”

With true high schooler Jessenia Camarena leading the way in the early going, the Wolves trailed just 8-7 after one quarter and 16-15 at the halftime break.

Masks in place and no fans in the gym, per Orcas School District request, Coupeville hung tough, exiting the third quarter down just 23-20.

Madison McMillan paced the Wolves with a team-high eight points in her high school hoops debut, while Camarena banged home seven, Lyla Stuurmans knocked down six, Katie Marti flipped in a bucket, and Morgan Stevens swished a free throw.

McMillan, Stuurmans, and Marti, along with fellow Wolf hoopsters Pamela Morrell, Bryley Gilbert, and Kassidy Upchurch, are all 8th graders.

Also seeing floor time for Smith’s squad were Reese Wilkinson, Skylar Parker, and Desi Ramirez.

With Orcas Island and Friday Harbor the only other NWL teams fielding a girls JV squad this season, Coupeville’s second team will play just four games, while other Wolf teams get 10-12 contests.

One of those comes up quick, however, as CHS travels to Friday Harbor this Saturday.

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Rough start, promise of better days

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on May 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Coupeville sophomore Gwen Gustafson scored her first varsity point Tuesday night. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

It was a tough way to kick off a new season.

With a very young roster, including two middle school-aged players, the Coupeville High School varsity girls basketball squad had trouble keeping up with one of the dominant hoops programs in its new league.

Mount Vernon Christian has played 23 games at the state tourney over the past seven seasons, bringing home top-six banners four times.

So it wasn’t too much of a surprise that the Hurricanes battered the Wolves Tuesday night in both team’s season openers, winning 54-14 on their home floor.

For second-year CHS coach Scott Fox, who lost five of his top seven scorers from a season ago, it was a rough, but maybe necessary learning lesson.

“It wasn’t pretty, but we now know the areas to improve on,” he said.

“There’s a reason MVC has gone to the state tournament often and it starts with their aggression,” Fox added. “We showed our youth tonight and there were times two 8th graders were in the lineup.”

Those CMS students, Lyla Stuurmans and Savina Wells, became the first middle school athletes to play in a CHS varsity girls basketball game, and they represent a bright future for Wolf hoops — just one which will have to learn under fire.

One of the team’s few returning veterans, junior Audrianna Shaw, led Coupeville on opening night, pounding away for a team-high eight points.

“Audri was our bright spot,” Fox said.

She was joined in the scoring column by Maddie Georges, who knocked down three points, Izzy Wells, who banked in a bucket, and Gwen Gustafson, who drained a free throw.

Gustafson, making her varsity hoops debut, becomes the 230th Wolf girl to score since the program began in 1974, and the second in her immediate family.

Big sis Amanda Fabrizi, a 2014 grad, is #36 on the all-time CHS girls scoring chart, having scorched the nets for 299 points in her prep career.

Ja’Kenya Hoskins

Tuesday’s game also marked the return of Ja’Kenya Hoskins.

After playing on varsity as a freshman, she missed her entire sophomore campaign thanks to a busted ankle suffered during a school dodgeball tourney.

Hoskins, an absolute ray of sunshine in the world, even if she’s too young to know what Videoville was, deserves all the praise for maintaining a supremely-positive attitude during her down time.

Ja’Kenya is a wrecking ball on the court, and pure class off it, and everything is at least a little bit better knowing her family gets to watch her play her favorite sport again.

 

No JV Game:

MVC doesn’t have a second squad this season, so Coupeville’s JV will make its debut Thursday at home against Orcas Island.

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Hardwood welcomes back Wolf girls

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on May 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Lyla Stuurmans kicks off a collection of girls hoops pics. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

Basketball is upon us.

A compressed pandemic-era hoops season kicks off Tuesday, with the Coupeville High School girls starting a 12-game campaign on the road in Mount Vernon.

After that, the games fly fast and furious, with the season finale set for June 17.

As you prep for a month of hardwood action, an early look at the players wearing Wolf uniforms.

Audrianna Shaw

The JV flexes some muscle.

Katie Marti

Mckenna Somes

CHS hoops coaches Megan Smith and Scott Fox.

Skylar Parker

The new-look Wolf varsity.

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Wolf JV girls lose two-thirds of schedule

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on May 13, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Megan Smith will coach four games, and not 12. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

One schedule is not like the other three.

The Coupeville High School JV girls basketball squad took a major hit Thursday, with their schedule shaved from 12 games to four.

The adjustment is because only three of the seven Northwest 2B/1B League schools will field a second girls hoops squad this season.

Coupeville is joined by Orcas Island and Friday Harbor, but La Conner, Darrington, Concrete, and Mount Vernon Christian will have just a varsity team for girls games.

As of the typing of this story, all seven schools will have boys and girls varsity teams.

Six of seven plan to play boys JV, with Concrete opting out, leaving the Coupeville young guns with a 10-game slate.

For the Wolf JV girls, the new schedule means they will only play once in front of their home fans.

That’s because no fans, varsity or JV, are allowed at the Orcas Island games, per the request of the Orcas School District.

 

The revamped girls JV schedule:

Thur-May 20 — Orcas Island — (5:00)
Sat-May 22 — @ Friday Harbor — (1:00)
Sat-June 5 — @ Orcas Island — (5:00)
Tues-June 8 — Friday Harbor — (5:00)

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Young, aggressive, and ready to rumble

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on May 11, 2021| Leave a Comment »

After missing her sophomore season with a busted ankle, Ja’Kenya Hoskins is ready to rumble. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

It’s a whole new ballgame.

As Coupeville High School girls basketball players and coaches prep for a new season, much is different.

The Wolves are in a new classification, with the school’s student body count moving them from 1A to 2B.

With that comes a move from the 1A North Sound Conference, lorded over by state power King’s, to the much-more competitive Northwest 2B/1B League.

Then, there’s the whole ongoing pandemic thing, which moved the season from winter out to spring, with a compressed 12-game schedule set to run from May 18-June 17.

On the floor, second-year Wolf head coach Scott Fox has a roster in flux, with some unexpected losses, but also some positive gains.

The return from injury of junior forward Ja’Kenya Hoskins, who broke her ankle playing dodgeball right before her sophomore campaign, is the big headline.

She’ll be joined by fellow juniors Izzy Wells, Audrianna Shaw, Anya Leavell, and Kylie Van Velkinburgh, as well as sophomores Maddie Georges and Carolyn Lhamon, all returnees from a varsity team which went 12-7 during the 2019-2020 season.

Maddie Georges slices through the defense.

Georges, a speedy point guard who tallied 86 points as a freshman, is the leading active scorer for the Wolves, as senior Chelsea Prescott opted not to play this season.

Prescott, who sits at #44 on the CHS girls career scoring chart with 249 points, is one of three varsity players who didn’t return, along with senior Mollie Bailey and sophomore Nezi Keiper.

That leaves opportunity for JV players to move up, though one who likely would have, tough-as-nails guard Alita Blouin, will miss the season with a back injury.

With player numbers down, a new wrinkle comes into play, as 2B schools can use 8th graders to help fill out its varsity and/or JV rosters.

However his lineup works out, Fox is ready for the challenge.

“We are young and don’t have the size or senior experience we had last year, but they were playing well together in the summer and fall before Covid shut us down,” he said.

“It does feel strange to be playing in May/June and with masks on,” Fox added. “We are going to compete in every game, but we have some talented schools in this league that make regular trips to the state tournament.

“Our goal is to be one of those teams, and I don’t think we are too far off.”

While all six of their league foes will bring a strong effort each time out, two stand out in particular.

“La Conner is really good!,” Fox said. “Scott Novak does a great job over there, and they have been to the (2B) state championship game a few times.

“Not far behind is Mount Vernon Christian, which is also talented and plays extremely hard,” he added. “They also make frequent state tournament runs at the 1B level.”

Getting away from private schools which often exist as “destination schools” for athletes who live in other areas is a plus for the small-town public school Wolves.

“I’m looking forward to the new league because it puts us on par with schools our size, but is still really competitive,” Fox said.

“Travel is always an issue when you’re going to Darrington, Concrete, Orcas, and Friday Harbor, but all schools in this league have to travel long distances, so it’s an equalizer.”

While Coupeville doesn’t have a lot of tall towers to clog up the middle, it does have girls who can play multiple positions, and have shown a desire to always be competitive.

Carolyn Lhamon stays calm under pressure.

“The strength of our team is our athleticism,” Fox said. “We have some real athletes out there that I want to run the court with while playing aggressive defense.

“I’d like to press more this year, but with the kids having to wear mandatory face masks, we need to be cognizant how much to push this style of play.”

With the pandemic-altered campaign sort of like an extended summer season, the young Wolves will continue to work on the small things, which can have a big payoff down the road.

“Our backbone is our defense, and I would like to improve on our transition offense from steals or missed shots,” Fox said. “We drill on this often in practice, and so far I like what I see.

“We’re looking to improve as a team, be competitive in every game, and have fun playing basketball again!”

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