Aiden Burdge saw action in two CMS hoops games Thursday, scoring eight in the JV contest. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
X marks the spot of your destruction.
With Xavier Murdy rolling off 14 consecutive points at one stretch Thursday, hitting on a variety of inside and outside shots, the Coupeville Middle School varsity boys basketball squad cruised to its fifth-straight win.
Blowing open a semi-close game in the second half, the Wolves crushed visiting Chimacum 56-26 to improve to 6-2 on the season.
In the opener, the Wolf JV carried a lead into the fourth quarter, then couldn’t buy a bucket and faded to a 34-26 loss.
Varsity:
Chimacum led for the very briefest of moments at 6-5 two minutes into the game, than X-Man dropped the boom.
The game-clinching play came fast and it came with an explosive bang.
Out on the run, Grady Rickner threaded a pair of Cowboy defenders, then dished the rock to Murdy, who slashed to the hoop and slapped home the go-ahead lay up.
Followed a few seconds later by a long three-ball off of the fingertips of Logan Martin, who was actually the leading scorer in the first quarter with seven points, it broke Chimacum’s spirit.
The Cowboys very will to live? That went shortly thereafter, thanks to an astonishing bit of work by the hyped-up Wolves.
With the clock racing madly to 0:00 in the first, Hawthorne Wolfe sailed into a pack of rivals to snatch away a loose ball, then spun the orb over his head.
Some will say he was just launching a prayer and had no clue where the ball would land.
Others would say, give in and believe the hype, Wolfe knew exactly what he was doing, and he was playing three-dimensional chess while Chimacum was still learning how to play checkers.
Either way, Wolfe’s tip landed smack-dab in Martin’s waiting hands, and the CMS 8th grader caught it, went airborne and launched a flawless jumper from the top of the key in one smoother-than-smooth motion.
Splat, ball hits nothing but net, buzzer rings, ref signals basket, crowd goes bonkers and the Cowboy tears hit the ground like the raindrops outside — fast, furious and in the thousands.
Up 18-9 at the first break, Coupeville stretched it out to 27-16 at halftime, with Murdy pounding home back-to-back buckets on power moves in the paint to cap things.
That was just the tip of the iceberg, however.
Having picked up a few halftime shooting tips from former Wolf scoring ace Allen Black, Murdy came out on fire to open the third.
First, he tip-toed down the baseline and threw up a reverse layup, then came a power bucket set up by a steal-and-dish from Wolfe, who was in full whirlwind mode.
Not content to stop there, Murdy swished back-to-back three-balls from the deepest part of the right corner, with one taking a jaw-dropping bounce to the heavens, before somehow catching a very forgiving part of the rim and promptly flopping through the bottom of the net.
Having rattled off 14 straight points by himself at that point, X-Man turned the highlight reel over to Wolfe, who tossed in an uncanny bank shot using his left hand, to cap a Chimacum-shredding 16-0 run.
The Cowboys had no answers, mostly trying to stay out of the way of the rampaging Wolves.
Whether it was Caleb Meyer, rocking a ’70s-style headband to hold back his curly hair while dropping in elegant finger rolls, or Murdy pump-faking a defender into the parking lot on a late bucket, CMS had everything working.
The only thing keeping the score down at the end was Coupeville’s sense of honor, as Wolfe ripped off three straight steals at the end, but circled back around and worked time off the clock instead of throwing down needless breakaway layups.
That left him with 16 points on the afternoon, while Murdy paced the Wolves with 20.
Meyer had eight, Martin netted seven (and a ton of rebounds), Rickner tickled the twines for five and Cody Roberts, Aiden Burdge and Gabe Shaw delivered hustle, defense and intangibles.
CMS wraps its season with a home game against Sequim Jan. 17, then a road trip to Port Angeles Jan. 18 to face Stevens.
After avenging an early-season loss to Forks a week ago, the finale gives the Wolves an opportunity to get payback for their only other defeat.
JV:
The first half was great, as Coupeville used a 20-5 run to turn an early six-point deficit into a nine-point lead at the break.
With Burdge, a swing player, draining eight points in the two quarters he was allotted, the Wolves built a 20-11 lead and seemed to be in control.
Things didn’t change much in the third, as Damon Stadler slapped home a rebound for a bucket right before the buzzer, sending CMS into the fourth up 26-19.
Unfortunately, Stadler’s put-back would be the last time the Wolves scored.
While Coupeville couldn’t get the ball to fall, Chimacum positioned their biggest player under the basket (good thing the refs weren’t enforcing the three-in-the-key rule…) and he spent the quarter grabbing rebounds and putting them back up and in.
Toss in a three-ball, and the Cowboys did, as a wild heave somehow rolled around the rim and flopped through, and the visitors were set.
A 15-0 advantage over the final eight minutes gave Chimacum a season split with the young Wolves (1-7), who are still very much a work in progress.
Burdge paced the JV with eight, while Stadler and Shaw knocked down six apiece.
Defensive wild man Dominic Coffman singed the nets for a quick four and Alex Murdy netted a bucket to round out the scoring.
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