Coupeville Sports

Two medals is twice as nice for Madison Tisa McPhee. (Photo courtesy Mad Dawg Productions)

The 4 x 200 squad on the victory stand. (Kristin Hurlburt photos)

The big board makes it seem more official.

Coupeville’s warriors enter the arena.

Tisa McPhee shares a light moment with a rival before things get serious.

    Tisa McPhee and South Whidbey’s Anna Hood, jointly kickin’ butt for Whidbey Island. (Photo courtesy Mad Dawg Productions)

It was the time of their lives.

For the six Coupeville High School student athletes who went to Cheney this weekend for the 1A state track meet (Madison Tisa McPhee, Jai’Lysa Hoskins, Marisa Etzell, Sylvia Hurlburt, Makana Stone and Kirsten Pelroy), their coaches and their proud parents, it will be two days that will stay with them for a long time.

For their fans back at home, cheering on the news that Tisa McPhee had claimed 3rd in the 100 hurdles and the 4 x 200 relay team had taken 5th, it was a final bit of great news from a sensational season.

Now, they return home, medals in hand. Tisa McPhee and Hoskins will graduate in two weeks, while the other four — a sophomore and three freshmen — could conceivably make the trip East a yearly occurrence.

Regardless of where they go from this point, though, they will always have this weekend, when they stood tall, when they stood together, when they stood as Wolves.

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Sorry, South Whidbey. You can’t catch us! (Eileen Stone photo)

Wolf senior Madison Tisa McPhee went out with two Top-5 finishes at her final state track meet.

They were the perfect mix of experience and youth.

Using two seniors and two freshmen, and backed up by a sophomore and another freshman, the Coupeville High School 4 x 200 relay squad stepped onto the track oval at the 1A state meet in Cheney Saturday and proved they belonged.

Dropping their time from Friday’s prelims by nearly two seconds, the quartet of Madison Tisa McPhee, Jai’Lysa Hoskins, Sylvia Hurlburt and Makana Stone exploded to a fifth-place finish.

They leapfrogged three teams — including Island rival South Whidbey — after grabbing the eighth and final spot in the finals a day before.

Their time of one minute, 47.65 seconds was shy of the school record they set earlier this year, but less than two seconds off the winning time put up by Connell (1:45.98).

The strong showing capped off a stellar state meet, and track career, for Tisa McPhee.

Returning to the site of where she had finished 8th in 1A in the 100 hurdles as a sophomore, the senior went toe-to-toe with the best and refused to back off.

Battling eventual champ Arielle Walden of Newport (15.55) and runner-up Courtney Porter of Bellevue Christian to the tape, she claimed 3rd in 16.23, while South Whidbey freshman Tera Applegate finished 6th.

“It was a really fun two races,” Tisa McPhee said.

As a team, Coupeville finished 26th out of 47 teams. Cedar Park Christian/Bothell won the team title.

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