Coupeville Sports

Normally the Whidbey Islanders Girls Under 17 select soccer team serves up precision passes and laser-like shots on goal.

Saturday morning, at just about the crack of dawn, they were serving up hotcakes and juice instead. Having rousted coach Sean LeVine from his slumber, they were staffing a fundraising breakfast at Applebee’s, raising money for tournament play.

The team, made up of girls from several local schools, sold nearly 80 tickets to the event.

The photos above are courtesy of soccer mom and coach Kali Barrio.

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   Hopefully soccer coach Sean LeVine (right) will catch up on his sleep before Saturday. (Charity Holland Graves photo)

Sean LeVine is not sleeping in this weekend.

The Coupeville soccer coach and his Girls Under 17 select team will be up at the crack of dawn and camped out at Applebee’s this Saturday, Nov. 17 from 8-10 AM to serve breakfast to anyone who would like to support the effort of local booters.

Tickets are $10 each and get you pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, juice, milk and coffee.

In Coupeville, they can be purchased in advance from LeVine, his wife Joline and players Jen Spark, Micky LeVine, Erin Rosenkranz and Jacki Ginnings. They can also be bought at the door Saturday.

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Wolf star Micky LeVine and Seattle Sounders FC striker Eddie Johnson.

The LeVine family after a mud race earlier this year. From left to right, Sean, a suspiciously clean Izzy, Joline, Jae and Micky.

Micky LeVine was born to play soccer.

Her dad Sean is a select soccer coach and a talented player himself. So there was little doubt LeVine, now a Coupeville High School sophomore, would be around the soccer pitch from an early age.

“I have played soccer since I was four years old,” LeVine said. “My parents just threw me a pair of cleats and told me to get out there and I’ve stuck to it ever since.”

While the high school season may have come to a close, soccer is virtually a year-round sport and LeVine also plays for a GU17 squad her father coaches.

A slightly-built but scrappy player, LeVine uses her speed and the skills she inherited from her parents to hold her own on the pitch, and, since weight training is her favorite class, she may soon be repping some muscle to back up the artistic side of her game.

“I think my strengths are my touches and passes,” LeVine said. “Since I’m smaller than most players I have trouble with knocking them off the ball and that’s what I need to work on most.”

While her parents brought her to the sport, she has come to love it as her own and embraces every aspect of the “beautiful game.”

“I overall just love the game of soccer and the competition and intensity that goes along with it. But most of all I love the friendships it builds with my teammates,” LeVine said. “One of my main goals for the next two seasons is to become a real impact player and I hope to help our team get better and keep pushing myself to play to my full potential.”

Coupeville’s huge win over Sultan on its home field this season generated a town-wide feeling of joy that LeVine would like to see replicated as often as possible in her remaining two years as a Wolf.

“The highlight for me this season, along with my team, was beating Sultan,” she said. “It was a wonderful feeling and it made our team closer.”

Off the field, LeVine spends a lot of time with family and friends, and takes a particular delight in forcing Wolf goalie McKayla Bailey to watch horror films with her.

“I am a huge ‘Mean Girls’ fan, but I have an odd amusement for horror films and I enjoy making my friends watch them with me,” LeVine said. “Sorry McKayla!!”

Along with the personal relationships she has built with her soccer buddies, LeVine also benefits from always having a strong pro-Micky rooting section at her games. Mom Joline LeVine and younger sisters Jae and Izzy are usually camped in the stands, come rain or shine. And it’s usually rain.

“The person that has made the biggest impact on my life is my father,” LeVine said. “He has pushed me to do my best and he has coached me since I was little.

“He has always been there for me no matter what; I couldn’t of asked for a better coach or a better dad,” she added. “I would also like to thank my mom for coming to almost every single game in the freezing cold weather.”

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 Anna Bailey (14) fights for a ball, while Marisa Etzell shadows the play. (Shelli Trumbull photos)

Junior Victoria Wellman is one of many rising stars expected to return next season.

Micky LeVine, on right, is part of an impressive Wolf youth movement, made up of players who have come up through the select soccer squad ranks.

Panda is a three-time MVP.

Shorty, McKK, Momma and Lefty all had pretty good seasons, as well.

The Coupeville High School girls’ soccer squad was an especially close-knit team this year, and giving each other nicknames was just part of the process. A team led by their seniors — the Great Eight (I can do this nickname business, too) — capped their season Thursday night by handing out awards and letters and letting loose for one last time as a unit.

Senior Amanda “Panda” d’Almeida topped the field, taking home the third Most Valuable Player award of a stellar career, while also notching Best Header in a team vote for a goal against Sultan. She was also one of five Wolves honored for playing all four years.

McKK, sophomore goalie McKayla Bailey, won two awards as well, taking home Most Improved (this was her first year on the soccer pitch and she made great leaps and bounds) and Save of the Year. That was for a crucial moment in the win over Sultan, where she sacrificed her face for team glory.

Other winners included Makana “Kana” Stone (Top Attacking Player and Best Move of the Year, for dribbling by a pesky Sultan defender), Anna “Lefty” Bailey (Top Defensive Player, 4-year award), Haley “Momma” Marx (Best Goal for a 30-yard bomb, Best Nickname, 4-year award), Kelsey “Shorty” Miranda (Best Nickname, 4-year award), Christine “Sis” Fields (Team Comedian), Vanessa “Nessie” Bernales (Team Comedian, 4-year award) and Erin “Streak” Rosenkranz (named the 2013 Team Captain by her teammates).

In a somewhat surprising revelation, the Wolves (d’Almeida in particular) were snubbed in voting for the Cascade Conference all-league team.

Back to the positives, however.

Earning letters were seniors Anna Bailey, Bernales, d’Almeida, Marx, Miranda, Kelsey Pape, Madison Tisa McPhee and Rachel Wenzel, juniors Joye Jackson and Victoria Wellman, sophomores McKayla Bailey, Marisa Etzell, Fields, Micky LeVine, Ana Luvera, Ivy Luvera and Rosenkranz and freshmen Jen Spark and Stone.

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   Jen Spark (9) is at the center of the celebration after Coupeville captured its first win of the season. (Robert Pelant photo)

Jen Spark

There is still a Spark of hope for the future.

Losing seniors Anna Bailey and Kelsey Miranda to graduation will be a blow to the Coupeville High School girls’ soccer team. The duo provided the backbone to the Wolves’ defense, running interference and hip-checking potential shooters into the first row of seats in support of CHS goalie McKayla Bailey.

But, with every loss, there is gain, and Coupeville’s gain comes in the form of scrappy defender Jen Spark, who spent her freshman season on the pitch learning along side veteran teammates. Not afraid to knock heads with opponents in pursuit of looses balls, Spark should continue to light a … spark … under her team for seasons to come.

She’s a seven-year vet already, having first stepped on the pitch at age five. At one point she took a two-year break from the sport, but couldn’t resist the siren call of the sport.

“What I enjoy most about soccer is when I play on the field, I feel like I am home,” Spark said. “When I step on the field, all my worries disappear.”

A multi-sport star (she also plays basketball and sometimes volleyball), Spark, who seemed to spend a lot of time this season bouncing on and off the turf, fighting for every play, would be the first to admit she’s not laid-back on the soccer field. But that’s a positive.

“I think my strength is my defending, my aggression and my kicks and passes,” Spark said. “I feel like I need to work on my dribbling skills and my movement off the ball.

“My goals are to stay strong back in the defense and be able to help on the offense,” she added. “My goals for the team are to be able to work together well as a team and moving the ball up the field and putting some balls in the back of the net.”

A fan of “She’s the Man,” “High School Musical 3” and “Mean Girls,” who listens to a range of music from hip hop to rock, Spark is a work in progress. Helping her along the way have been a wide variety of people, from a family friend (Tony Mulbreght) who aided her and younger brother Ethan to get a financial scholarship for soccer, to her coaches and parents.

“I would like to thank my mom (Kali Barrio), because she supports me in soccer and in life,” Spark said. “She pushes me to do my best in everything. She tells me that if I set my mind to something, I can do anything.

“I would also like to thank my select coach Sean LeVine, because he has helped me improve so much in soccer,” she added. “I don’t think I would be where I am today if he hadn’t coached me. Everything I know about defense he taught me.”

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