Savina Wells rumbled for a team-high 12 points Wednesday, as Coupeville’s #1 middle school hoops team battled King’s. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
Lyla Stuurmans ran the point for the Wolves, and was a firecracker on defense.
Big shots, big rallies, big effort.
All three Coupeville Middle School girls basketball teams acquitted themselves nicely Wednesday, fighting hard against the toughest opponents they will probably see this season.
While none of the Wolf squads could pull out a win against private school power King’s, they didn’t let the visitors walk all over them, and that bodes well for the rest of the campaign.
How the day played out:
Level 1:
What could have been.
Last year King’s opted not to play against other local middle school teams, so Coupeville’s undefeated 8th grade squad never got the chance to match-up with the high-flying Seattleites.
This year, with a new format where 7th and 8th graders mix and match across three teams, the Wolves got their crack, and came dangerously close to pulling off the KO.
Up 25-16 late in the third quarter, CMS fell prey to a late barrage of three-balls and couldn’t quite hold on in what turned into a 41-28 defeat.
The loss evens Coupeville’s record at 1-1 on the season, and is the only time the Wolves face King’s during their 10-game schedule.
After Wednesday’s battle royal, CMS hits the road Jan. 19-20 to face Sultan and South Whidbey.
Showing no fear whatsoever, Coupeville’s top squad came out and won the tip, thanks to the long arms and big hops of 7th grader Savina Wells, then went right at King’s.
Wells scored all of her team’s first quarter points, dropping eight on a pair of free throws followed by three rampages to the hoop.
On all three trips, she went over, under, or around King’s defenders, while on the move, before slapping home the ball with the kind of conviction and precision rarely seen at the middle school level.
While the Wolves trailed 9-8 at the first break, thanks to King’s nailing a three-ball right before the buzzer, the game felt like a draw.
And it stayed that way, literally, as the teams fought through a defensive brawl of a second quarter, emerging knotted up at 12-12 when the halftime break arrived.
Wells added another bucket on a coast-to-coast romp, while fellow 7th grader Madison McMillan came up big in the paint, yanking down a rebound and going back up strongly for the put-back.
If King’s thought Coupeville was a one-woman team, though, they got a wake-up call in the third quarter.
Lauren Marrs and Brionna Blouin, 8th graders who live to knife foes by raining down three-balls, went bonkers coming out of the break, each banging home a pair of treys.
Both of Blouin’s bombs were classic rainbows fired from the top of the arc, while Marrs got creative.
On her first three-ball, she pulled up from somewhere out in the parking lot and ripped the bottom of the net out with an absolute laser, prompting mom Emili to fire off high-fives to everyone in sight.
Not content to wow the masses just once, Marrs capped a 10-0 Wolf run with a trey which took 17 bounces as the ball hit every part of the rim and the backboard, shot straight up, then did a backward somersault through the net.
That staked CMS to a 25-16 lead, sent the CMS faithful into hysterics, and shook the King’s coaching staff to its core.
But, the private school snipers haven’t been paying to play AAU ball for years just to roll over at the first sign of trouble.
Give King’s credit.
It weathered the storm, fed the ball to its best player, the “Queen of Flops,” on a regular basis, and when she wasn’t taking graceful swan dives to the floor at the slightest contact, she was a rebound-ripping, big-bucket-scoring beast.
Her teammates patrolled the outer ranges, draining three-balls off of kick-outs, and King’s closed the third quarter on a 9-0 streak to tie things at 25-25, before dominating in the fourth.
Coupeville’s shooting touch took a slight vacation across the game’s last seven minutes, with the Wolves unable to hit a field goal in the final frame.
While the game didn’t end quite the way the Wolves wanted, they exited with nothing to hang their heads about, having pushed a superior opponent hard from opening tip to final buzzer.
Wells finished with a team-best 12 points, giving her 32 through the first two games of the season, while Marrs (7), Blouin (6), McMillan (2), and feisty point guard Lyla Stuurmans (1) also scored.
Allison Nastali and Desi Ramirez also saw floor time, and both provided a nice spark on the defensive end of the floor.
Level 2:
The day’s closest game, as Coupeville’s second squad fell 25-14 in its season opener.
The first foe on the schedule this year was Northshore Christian, which has only one team.
Because of that, neither Coupeville’s #2 or #3 team had been in a live game until Wednesday.
And the tilt with King’s was close.
Toss out the third quarter, when the visitors forced a string of turnovers during a 10-2 surge, and the deficit would have been just 15-12.
CMS started a bit slowly, getting just a Grey Peabody bucket — off of a nice inbounds pass from Katie Marti — during a 9-2 first quarter.
But flip the page to the second quarter, and the game took a big swing.
Trailing 11-2 after King’s swished a pullup jumper to open the frame, the Wolves turned up the defensive heat and it paid off.
Unleashing defensive ballhawks Kaitlyn Leavell and Taylor Brotemarkle, who got scrappy and then some, hitting the floor hard in pursuit of loose balls, CMS kicked its offense into high gear.
The wolves closed the half on a 7-0 run, with Reese Wilkinson banging home a pair of buckets in the paint after overpowering her defender down low.
Toss in another Marti to Peabody basket, again off of a well-executed inbounds lob, and Coupeville was clicking.
While their shooting touch cooled down a bit during the halftime break, the Wolves got more scoring in the fourth from Peabody, as she used a variety of moves to rack up a team-high nine points.
Wilkinson added four and Marti slipped a free throw through the twines to round out the scoring.
Aby Wood, Kayla Arnold, Issabel Johnson, Brotemarkle, Skylar Parker, Jada Heaton, Leavell, and Chloe Marzocca also saw floor time as CMS coach Alex Evans spread out the minutes.
Level 3:
Coupeville’s third squad was also making its season debut, and while the final score of 34-7 would seem fairly lopsided, you can’t, and shouldn’t, ignore the heart shown by a collection of Wolf girls who are mostly brand-new to the game.
Heaton, one of the few CMS players on the floor with any prior experience, led the way, dropping in a team-high three points and playing spirited defense.
She rattled home Coupeville’s lone first half point, netting a free throw as her team fell behind 18-1.
To their credit, the Wolves played strong defense in the second quarter, limiting King’s to just a lone basket.
The third quarter was the closest frame of the game, with Bryley Gilbert, Alena Osborne, and Heaton all banking in buckets for CMS.
Kassidy Upchurch, Shayla Town, Devika Vogelsang-Puente, Aubrey Blitch, Pamela Morrell, and Gabriella Becktell also saw floor time for the Wolves, with all showing hustle, scrappiness, and a burning desire to learn.
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