Olivia Hall battles for the ball. (Julie Wheat photo)
“I’m really proud of them.”
Though just an 8th grader, Lucy Schisel has already made a strong impact as one of the leading scorers on this year’s Coupeville High School varsity girls’ soccer squad.
Dangerous on the pitch, the young Wolf booter also is already showing maturity and polish off the field, as well.
Which was demonstrated in Schisel’s thoughtful postgame comments after CHS put up a spirited fight Friday night during a 6-0 loss to visiting Mount Vernon Christian, a team with legit state title hopes.
Coupeville was unable to keep the Hurricanes high-powered offense from raining down shots, with a little help from refs who awarded MVC two penalty shots for minor collisions while ignoring Wolf goaltender Finley Helm being steamrolled and left to pick grass out of her teeth.
But that doesn’t mean the plucky Wolves, minus three key players, didn’t go down swinging in front of their home fans.
“We put in our all,” Schisel said. “We pushed ourselves against a very good team, and we had the right idea most of the time — our passes were just a second too late.”
Coupeville’s defense, under extreme duress most of the night, held up well in the early going, holding the ‘Canes scoreless for 20 minutes to open play.
Helm made several nice snags on incoming missiles, while Lillian Ketterling ran down, and hip checked into submission, several MVC players intent on making long runs.
Ultimately, however, Mount Vernon had too many high-powered scorers and slipped in two goals in a two-minute span to take the lead.
The score remained at 2-0 heading into the half, with Olivia Hall, Hailey Goldman, Emma Cushman, Tamsin Ward and others putting together another 25-minute run of not surrendering a goal.
Hailey Goldman put up a spirited fight Friday night. (Jacob Lujan photo)
Then the dam broke, with the Hurricanes rattling home four more goals — two thanks to those penalty shots — to salt away the win.
Helm bounded high into the air to make a jump save on a well-cracked ball in the late going, while her defenders sacrificed their bodies to the cause until the final whistle.
With the loss, and Friday Harbor beating Lopez Island 3-0 earlier in the day, Coupeville’s playoff hopes took a hit, but are not gone.
The Wolves, now 4-4-2 in Northwest 2B/1B League play, 5-5-2 overall, sit in fourth place in the seven-team league, with the top three teams getting a ticket to the postseason.
MVC is atop the standings at 9-0-0 for 27 points, followed by Friday Harbor (7-2-0 for 21 points) and Lopez (6-3-2 for 20 points), with CHS (14 points), La Conner (2-4-2 for eight points), Providence Classical Christian (2-7-0 for six points), and Orcas Island (0-10 for zippo) rounding out the chase.
Coupeville has two league games left, traveling to La Conner October 20 and hosting Friday Harbor October 29, while Lopez has one, traveling to La Conner October 27.
With three points for a win and one for a tie, the Wolves need to win both of their remaining league games and need Lopez to lose to force a tie for that third, and final, playoff berth.
