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Archive for the ‘Girls Basketball’ Category

End of one road, beginning of another

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Scout Smith slashes up-court Tuesday night. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

Nicole Laxton (with flowers) was one of three senior hoops stars honored before Coupeville’s game against King’s.

A pack of Wolf JV girls prepares to attack. L to r, it’s Lily Leedy, Ivy Leedy, Abby Mulholland and Audrianna Shaw.

The shirt game is strong for Lindsey Roberts’ family.

Ja’Kenya Hoskins: “No, it’s my rebound and you can’t have it!”

Ema Smith shares Senior Night with her parents and big sis Ciara.

Coupeville swarms the ball-handler, causing her great distress.

The three amigos marinate in the moment.

It’s not THE end, but it is an end.

The Coupeville High School girls basketball team has a minimum of three games left in the 2018-2019 schedule, a regular season finale Friday at Granite Falls, then at least two playoff games.

But every postseason rumble is slated to be in a road gym, so Tuesday night’s bout against visiting King’s marked the final game played on the CHS floor for the Wolf seniors.

Four years ago, when the 2015-2016 basketball season kicked off, there were seven freshmen playing.

Jump forward to Jan. 2019, and Nicole Laxton, Ema Smith, and Lindsey Roberts remain from that group, having put in a complete four-year run.

As they exited Tuesday, they thanked their families, their support crew and coaches David and Amy King.

“Thank you for having so much patience with us over the years,” Smith said in her farewell speech. “Everyone knows we are a lot to handle.”

For Laxton, every moment she spent on the floor, whether it be practices or games, was special.

“These last four years of basketball have been amazing,” she wrote. “I loved every second of every season.”

Roberts, the rare player to have been on the varsity from day one, gave thanks to everyone who played a role in her growth as a player, and young woman.

To cap things, she paid tribute to her many teammates.

“You guys are some of the funniest, weirdest, but nonetheless best teammates I could ever ask for,” Roberts wrote. “Whether you guys know it or not, you all have inspired me to be a better player and teammate on and off the court.

“You guys have no limit and I believe in you all so much!”

 

To see more Senior Night and action photos from Tuesday, pop over to:

https://www.johnsphotos.net/Sports/Coupeville-Basketball-2018-2019-boys-and-girls/GBB-2019-01-29-vs-Kings/

And remember, when you purchase glossies from John Fisken, a percentage of the money comes back around, used when he gives out two scholarships each year to CHS seniors.

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Play the best, sometimes you get zapped

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , , , on January 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Lindsey Roberts (left) and Ema Smith were two of the three Wolf hoops stars honored Tuesday on Senior Night. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

It didn’t go the way they might have hoped.

Run ragged Tuesday by a King’s team with state title aspirations, the Coupeville High School varsity girls basketball team got crunched on Senior Night.

Even on an evening when their six-foot freshman prodigy wasn’t at the top of her game, the visiting Knights had an answer for everything the Wolves tried, exiting the gym with a 59-11 win.

The loss, coming after Coupeville put up its fewest points in any game this season, drops CHS to 5-4 in North Sound Conference play, 7-9 overall.

The Wolves, who are guaranteed to be the #3 seed from their league when the double-elimination district playoffs start Feb. 4, close the regular season Friday at Granite Falls.

Things got off to a nice start Tuesday when Coupeville honored seniors Nicole Laxton, Lindsey Roberts, and Ema Smith before tip-off.

After the ball was tossed up in the air, however, things got much tougher.

King’s features frosh phenom Jada Wynn, who played in the junior NBA world tournament before attending a single day of high school.

On this night, though, she took a back seat, picking up four fouls, including an offensive charge after Wolf freshman Ja’Kenya Hoskins stood her ground, and scored “just” 10 points.

The Knights, a deep, talented, polished team, merely shrugged, with sophomores Claire Gallagher and Mia Flor tossing in 17 and 12 respectively.

Coupeville, as a team, didn’t crack double digits until the next-to-last play of the third quarter, then went scoreless in the fourth.

Down 8-0 in the early going, but dodging bullets as King’s had some shooting issues of its own, at least for a bit, the Wolves finally got on the scoreboard six minutes into the game.

The first bucket came courtesy Ema Smith, and it gave her 201 points for her prep career, making her just the 55th Wolf girl to top that mark since the modern program began in 1974.

Unfortunately for CHS, that was its only basket of any kind for quite a bit.

By the time Hannah Davidson swooped in, snatched a rebound and went back up strong for a second-chance bucket, the game was 21-2 in favor of King’s and slipping away quickly.

To make sure to drive the point home, the Knights followed up Davidson’s put-back by nailing back-to-back three-balls, two of the eight treys they hit on the evening.

A 27-7 halftime deficit ballooned badly after the halftime break, as King’s, continuing to play with its customary take-no-prisoners style, went on a 25-4 romp in the third.

Two buckets from Roberts, one off a nice dish by Scout Smith, gave CHS fans some brief respite, but, ultimately, it was a game the Wolves will do well to quickly scrub from their brain pans.

But, just because it was a one-sided affair doesn’t mean there weren’t a few bright spots.

Coupeville coach David King praised the play of Roberts, who had to fight through a constant wave of defenders, as well as Davidson’s work on the boards, and defensive dynamo Tia Wurzrainer’s scrappiness while still contesting passes in the late going.

Roberts finished with four points Tuesday, lifting her to 422 for her career.

She needs just two more buckets to pass Cassidi Rosenkrance (423), Mika Hosek (424), and Sarah Powell (425) and become the #20 scorer in program history.

Chelsea Prescott added three free-throws in support of Roberts, with Davidson and Ema Smith providing the night’s other buckets.

Roberts had a team-best eight rebounds, Avalon Renninger yanked down five boards and doled out three assists, with Scout Smith collecting five boards, two blocks and a steal.

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Big effort, but bigger foe

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Mollie Bailey slapped home a pair of buckets Tuesday as the Coupeville JV girls tangled with powerful King’s. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

It was a brawl, then it was a blowout.

The Coupeville High School JV girls basketball squad stood tall for nine minutes Tuesday, pushing visiting King’s to the brink.

Then, the Knights remembered they have a roster stocked full of AAU vets with dreams of playing college ball, and they reverted to form, exploding on separate runs of 15-0, 20-0, and 12-0.

What was a 10-9 CHS lead after Morgan Stevens rained down a fall-away jumper to open the second quarter turned into a 58-23 King’s win, and you can’t say it wasn’t expected.

The Knights second squad is a shiny 11-4 this season, having lost only to 3A and 4A schools and one of the state’s premier 1A schools, Cashmere.

But, while the Wolves fell to 4-3 in North Sound Conference play, 8-7 overall, heading into their season finale Friday at Granite Falls, they made some inroads.

The 23 points is the most the King’s JV has surrendered to a conference foe this season, and is a solid nine-point improvement from the first time the schools met, a 49-14 Knights win.

Coupeville came out aggressively Tuesday, using inspired rebounding from Ja’Kenya Hoskins to force King’s to up its game.

Early buckets from Mollie Bailey, off a sweet feed from Anya Leavell, and Hoskins, off of an offensive rebound, staked the Wolves to a 4-2 lead, the first of four positive scores for CHS.

Izzy Wells drained a put-back after snagging a rebound to make it 6-5, Abby Mulholland twirled in a jumper off a pass from Audrianna Shaw to put Coupeville up 8-7, then Stevens netted her bucket off a Leavell set-up pass.

The action was crisp, the Wolves were scrambling for loose balls and caroms, and anything seemed possible.

And then death came from above.

King’s dropped in a trio of three-balls, part of the seven it would hit in the game, and, in the blink of an eye, a 15-0 run had changed everything.

Mulholland did her best to get the Wolves back into the flow, netting back-to-back jumpers, with the second bucket coming of yet another superb pass from Leavell, but King’s wasn’t having it.

Scoring the final eight points of the half, then 24 of the first 26 after the break, the visitors put the game far out of reach.

From the final three minutes of the second quarter until the last half of the fourth, Coupeville could only hit one single, solitary shot, though it was a beautiful, crowd-pleasing jumper from hard-working freshman Alana Mihill.

While the rim was unforgiving, the Wolves never stopped working, and they garnered some respect from their foes at the end, closing the game on a 7-2 surge.

Wells went off for five of her team-high seven points during that part of the game, while Bailey added an artful layup.

Mulholland tossed in six points to back Wells, with Bailey (4), Mihill (2), Stevens (2), and Hoskins (2) also scoring.

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Free-throw woes knife Wolf girls

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Ema Smith rippled the nets for 10 points Friday, as Coupeville made a play to upset Cedar Park Christian. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The upset died at the free-throw line.

The Coupeville High School varsity girls basketball team played often-superb defense Friday night, hit some pressure-packed shots, and didn’t flinch when facing a very-talented foe.

But the one part of the game that the Wolves totally controlled — walking to the charity stripe with the clock stopped, then sinking shots — failed, and so did any hope of shocking visiting Cedar Park Christian.

Bouncing 12 of 22 free throws off the rim, Coupeville fell 37-28 and saw its chances to finish in the top two of the six-team North Sound Conference vanish.

With the loss, the Wolves drop to 5-3 in league play, 7-8 overall, and clinch third place, a slot better than where the preseason coaches poll had them finishing.

Coupeville, which has two regular season games left, will finish behind league champ King’s (8-0) and CPC (7-2), and ahead of Granite Falls (2-6), Sultan (2-6), and South Whidbey (0-7).

After hosting King’s next Tuesday, and traveling to Granite Friday, the Wolves open the double-elimination district tourney Feb. 4 on the road at Meridian.

If Coupeville had won Friday, it would have gone a half game up on CPC and still been in contention for second-place, and the home playoff opener which comes with that finish.

And, after losing by 20 points in Bothell the first time these teams played, the Wolves looked like a team very interested in playing out that scenario.

Forcing CPC star Irena Korolenko into a poor shooting performance, at least for awhile, Coupeville claimed the early lead and stayed within a bucket late into the third quarter.

Hannah Davidson, who hit the boards with a nice intensity, opened the scoring when she ripped a carom away from an Eagle and went right back up with it for the night’s first bucket.

Add an Ema Smith free throw and the Wolves were up 3-0, and ready to claim the win if the game had been called early.

It was not, however, and CPC reclaimed the lead for good at 4-3 late in the first quarter on a turnaround jumper from Korolenko.

Up 8-3 at the initial break, the Eagles stretched the lead to 10-3, but Coupeville didn’t back down this time out.

Ema Smith spiked a CPC shot back up-court, then followed the ball and sank a long three-ball when Scout Smith threaded a pass between defenders and onto her older teammate’s fingertips.

Another Scout Smith special, this one an outlet pass which soared through the air and dropped into the waiting arms of a sprinting Lindsey Roberts, kept the pressure on.

While Korolenko had eight points at the half, that was a bucket less than she scored in just the first quarter the last time the teams met, and a 14-10 deficit at the break certainly didn’t seem insurmountable.

CHS kept up the pressure in the third, forcing the Eagles out of their comfort zone, and staying within a basket until the final minute of the frame.

The Wolves couldn’t quite get over the hump, however, cutting the margin to 14-13 and 18-16, but missing free throws which would have given them the lead.

Meanwhile, Korolenko, who took, and hit, all seven Cedar Park free throws on the night, whistled four straight freebies through the net to close the third, then opened the fourth with a three-point play the hard way.

Suddenly, a one-score game had momentarily gotten out of hand, with the visitors up 27-16 and seemingly pulling away.

But, after some words of wisdom from coach David King, the Wolves got buckets from Ema Smith and Chelsea Prescott, packaged around a free throw, and the deficit was back to a manageable six points.

Korolenko is a star for a reason, though, and, after being “held” to 14 points through three quarters, she torched the Wolves for 11 more in the fourth.

While two long jumpers and a layup off an inbound pass stung, the ultimate killer came on a basket set up when Cedar Park saved a runaway ball at the last millisecond, and, against all odds, turned it into a gut-punch of a bucket.

Scrambling towards the line, Korolenko got her finger on the ball, somehow spinning it back onto the court as she crashed into the back wall.

As the ball hit the court, it took a perfect spin (for CPC), shooting between two Wolves and right to a surprised Eagle, who immediately hit a soft lil’ jumper in the paint.

Coupeville kept coming, with Scout Smith nailing a three-ball from the top of the arc to cut the margin to 33-28, but the Wolves couldn’t score across the final minute-plus, and Korolenko ended things with two more perfect free throws.

CHS, which missed three free throws in the first quarter, four more in the second, three in the third, and two in the fourth, was left to contemplate what could have been.

And what could still be, if the teams meet a third time in the postseason.

Ema Smith, who has been on a shooting tear of late, paced the Wolves with 10 points, pulling her within a single free throw of becoming the 55th Coupeville girl to score 200 in their career.

Davidson (4), Roberts (4), Scout Smith (4), Prescott (3), Avalon Renninger (2), and Ja’Kenya Hoskins (1) also scored, while Roberts and Hoskins snatched eight rebounds apiece.

Renninger dealt out three assists, Scout Smith pilfered two steals, and Ema Smith registered two blocks.

 

No JV:

Cedar Park doesn’t have a second team, so Coupeville’s young guns sat Friday night out.

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One team, to rule the Island

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Freshman Anya Leavell tossed in eight points Monday as Coupeville’s JV bushwhacked Oak Harbor. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Our freshmen are better than yours.

Completing a 4-0 run against Whidbey Island rivals this season, the Coupeville High School JV girls basketball squad drilled visiting Oak Harbor’s C-Team 45-16 Monday night.

The win, the fourth in the last five games for the Wolves, lifts them to 8-6 on the year.

Coupeville’s JV, which featured eight freshmen among its nine active players Monday, swept home-and-away series from both 1A North Sound Conference rival South Whidbey and 3A Oak Harbor, granting them the possibly made-up, but still spiffy title of “Island Champs.”

And none of those four games were remotely close, either.

Facing a withering Wolf defense, Oak Harbor spent much of the first half Monday just fighting to get out of its back-court.

The Wildcats didn’t get a shot up that connected with either the rim or the backboard until seven and a half minutes into the game.

At that point, OHHS already trailed 16-0, en route to an eventual 24-0 deficit midway through the second quarter, and Coupeville was clicking on all cylinders.

Bucket after bucket was set up by crisp passes, as the Wolves picked apart Oak Harbor’s interior defense with ease.

The game opened on a layup from Izzy Wells, with Coupeville’s lone active sophomore, Mollie Bailey, providing the sweet dish, as she came off the dribble and flipped the pass right onto Wells waiting fingertips.

Less than two seconds later, having yanked an in-bounds pass away from the intended target, Ja’Kenya Hoskins crashed hard to the hoop, slapping home the ball with a satisfying thunk.

After that the buckets came bam-bam-bam, many set-up by steals or Wolves wrestling 50/50 balls away from their rivals and immediately crashing towards the hoop.

Wells had the hottest hand in the opening frame, popping for eight, but Coupeville spread its 18-0 surge among five shooters.

Six of Coupeville’s nine buckets in the first quarter came courtesy layups, two on sideline jumpers by Wells and Anya Leavell, and one on a power move down in the paint from Abby Mulholland.

The heir to the Keefe basketball legacy (go look it up, it’s pretty dang impressive), Mulholland posted up, caught an entry pass, then knocked her defender backwards with a subtle hip shot before draining the turnaround jumper.

The second quarter was a showcase for Audrianna Shaw, who kicked in three buckets as CHS went up 24-0 before setting for a 28-2 lead at the break.

Showing she’s dangerous from anywhere on the floor, Shaw drilled a pull-up jumper, off a kick-out from Leavell, then rolled around the corner to bank home a shot before capping things with a burst right up the middle, splitting two defenders and hitting a runner.

Mulholland, who scored in every quarter, paced the Wolves in the third, but fellow frosh Alana Mihill earned the biggest curtain call.

The scrappy cross country veteran, who had been zigging and zagging on defense all night, frustrating the Wildcat shooters, suddenly pulled up and drained a three-ball from the top of the arc late in the third frame.

Her teammates, JV and varsity, went bonkers for Mihill’s surprise bomb, her second bucket and first trey of the season.

Up in the crow’s nest, varsity players Avalon Renninger, Tia Wurzrainer, and Scout Smith, shooting game film, got so excited they came close to knocking each other down into the stands.

Perhaps taking some inspiration from Mihill, Oak Harbor, which had struggled mightily on offense through three quarters, hitting just one field goal and two free throws, picked things up down the stretch.

The Wildcats managed to put together an 8-0 run during the fourth quarter, topped double-digits scoring for the night, and “won” the final frame 12-6.

A huge part of that was Coupeville having long past taken its press off, but the Wolf defenders did pull off a couple of strong plays late, while being careful not to be so aggressive as to be jerks.

Morgan Stevens hauled down her fair share of rebounds, scrapping hard in the paint, while Lily Leedy made off with several steals, turning one into a breakaway layup.

As the ball settled through the net, Leedy turned, and flashing a smile at her family in the stands, charged back down court, ready to harass any and all ball-handlers foolish enough to dribble her way.

While CHS coach Amy King was missing four players with injuries (Kylie Van Velkinburgh, Ivy Leedy, Kylie Chernikoff and Kiara Contreras), she got big contributions from everyone able to take the floor.

Wells led the scoring attack with 12 points, while Mulholland was coming up hot in her rear-view mirror with 10 of her own.

After that, the Wolves got eight from Leavell, six from Shaw, three from Mihill, and a bucket apiece from Hoskins, Bailey, and Leedy.

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