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A final (home) spike!!

Posted in Volleyball, tagged , , , , on October 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   How many kills will you have tonight, Katrina McGranahan? “I don’t know … is “a lot” a number?” (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

Payton Aparicio and the parental units kick off our Senior Night portraits.

Team manager Kayla (left) and Lauren Rose

Allison Wenzel

Mikayla Elfrank

Hope Lodell hung in midair for a good two minutes. Uncanny.

Kyla Briscoe

McGranahan

Lodell

   Juniors Ashley Menges (holding cutout) and Emma Smith (pointing at Aparicio) get in on the festivities.

The end comes for everyone.

There’s still a ton of volleyball to play — a road match at Port Townsend Saturday and then a postseason run starting at districts Nov. 4 in Tacoma — but Wednesday night was the final home court appearance for the Magnificent Seven (plus one).

Coupeville’s incredibly deep senior class, comprised of seven spikers and one faithful manager, were honored after the Wolves routed Klahowya and John Fisken was there to capture it on film.

The photos above are courtesy him.

To see everything he shot, on and off the court, pop over to the link below.

When you do, remember, purchases help fund college scholarships for CHS student/athletes, while also enticing Fisken to come back to Cow Town more often.

http://www.johnsphotos.net/Sports/2017-Coupeville-Volleyball/2017-10-25-vs-Klahowya/

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Serve up success!!

Posted in Middle School, Volleyball, tagged , , , , on October 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Gwen Gustafson and her Coupeville Middle School volleyball teammates close their season at home Thursday. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

They’re peaking at the right time.

Finishing the regular season with three home matches in one week, the last one which will go down Thursday, the Coupeville Middle School volleyball squads are going out in style.

Wednesday, both the 7th and 8th grade Wolves romped to wins against Blue Heron, each taking two of three sets from the visitors.

Coupeville will try to keep that momentum going when it hosts Sequim in its finale Thursday. First tip is 3:15 PM.

Facing off with Blue Heron, which hails from Port Townsend, the Wolf 7th graders cruised to the win thanks to strong serving.

They hit on 35 of 44 serves across the first two sets.

Brynn Schmidt kick-started things, nailing 10 serves in a row to start the first set, before Kaielle Bepler (seven serves) and Alita Blouin (6) carried the burden in the next set.

Since Blue Heron fields only one team for each grade, Coupeville mashed together its varsity and JV teams on the afternoon.

“Everyone played, so it was great to get the whole team on the court, even though it was only three games,” said CMS 7th grade co-coach Kimberly Bepler.

“We’ll be glad to play the full three games for JV and the full three games for varsity tomorrow (Thursday),” she added. “The girls are looking forward to playing our last match after a really fun season of learning and acquiring new skills.”

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Pray for mercy!!

Posted in Volleyball, tagged , , , , on October 25, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Lucy Sandahl played sensationally in all aspects of the game Wednesday, sparking the Wolf JV spikers to yet another win. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Savannah Smith is having none of your shenanigans.

There was a moment Wednesday during the JV volleyball match between Coupeville and Klahowya when the visiting Eagles seemed to still have a shot.

Enter Smith, and exit all hope from the hearts of her rivals.

Rising skyward with a mighty spring, the fab frosh rejected a Klahowya shot, using the very tippy-top of her fingers to forcibly send the ball skidding downward for a winner.

Then, after pausing to roll her eyes at the mere thought that someone would try and slip a volleyball past her impeccable defense, Smith softly smiled.

But just a bit, and quickly, and then the mask o’ death dropped again across her face as she stared holes through the players on the other side of the net.

It was a look shared by her teammates as well, as the Wolf young guns continue to thrash virtually everyone who wander into their path.

A mixture of freshmen and sophomores with their eye on making the jump to varsity next year when the departure of seven seniors will open a huge hole in the roster, they are now 11-1 overall, 8-0 in Olympic League play.

Their only defeat came to ginormous 2A Port Angeles, while the JV beat the only two teams the Wolf varsity has lost to — 2A Sequim and 1A powerhouse Bellevue Christian.

The latest JV win was a 25-12, 25-22, 25-21 dismantling of Klahowya which, frankly, wasn’t as close as some of those set scores might sound.

The Eagles were scrappy and put up a fight, but when it came time to ending points with a bang, that was reserved almost solely for the Wolves.

Whether Zoe Trujillo was slicing winners at the net, Raven Vick was pounding the crud out of the ball on spikes or Emma Mathusek was setting up her teammates for success, every Wolf on the floor was clicking.

Coupeville roared out to an early lead behind pinpoint serving from Lucy Sandahl, then coasted home for the first set win behind a sparkling tip from Maddie Vondrak and Maya Toomey-Stout unleashing heck on Earth.

“The Gazelle,” who is fond of climbing in the air, then breaking the laws of gravity by hanging for an eternity, before delivering crippling kills, was in fine form.

Toomey-Stout smoked the Eagles several times, but one kill in the first set, when she bounced a winner off of not one, not two, but three different players, was a thing of particular beauty.

For a moment, she was like a pool player ricocheting the ball around, leaving a little sting on the skin of every player whose body parts conflicted with the route of her shot.

While Coupeville dominated at the net — Chelsea Prescott joined her companions in regularly tattooing winners — the best play of the night came not on an outright winner, but on a sheer hustle play.

With the score knotted up midway through the second set, Klahowya appeared to have a winner, but Kylie Chernikoff had other ideas.

The Wolf frosh was down on the floor, but threw up her hand above her head while prone, somehow redirecting the ball back into play a millisecond before it skidded away into the crowd.

That gave Chernikoff’s teammates a chance to rally on a play which should have been dead, and, when the Wolves turned it into a point several hits later, all the momentum was on their side.

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“I like the balance!!”

Posted in Volleyball, tagged , , , , on October 25, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Payton Aparicio and Coupeville volleyball are flying high. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The final play of the match Wednesday told you everything you needed to know.

A Klahowya server launched the ball skyward, smacked the orb, then watched as it nestled into the net and flopped back on her side of the court.

Game, set, match and the air has completely gone out of the Eagles.

If you were naive enough to doubt the 1A Olympic League firmly belongs to the Coupeville High School volleyball program, then, I have a bridge to sell you, kid.

The Wolves have rolled through conference play, notching a second-straight league crown, and they have done it without dropping a set.

Flying high after a 25-15, 25-15, 25-19 dismantling of Klahowya, Coupeville is 8-0 in league (24-0 in sets played), 11-2 overall.

With one regular season match left, a trip to Port Townsend (2-5, 4-10) Saturday, the Wolves are chasing nothing short of perfection.

Though don’t tell them that, as, having tied last year’s team for wins, they have their eyes on bigger targets.

Districts are Nov. 4 in Tacoma, and CHS will need one win in two matches to earn the program’s first trip to state since 2004.

That team, coached by spiker guru Toni Crebbin, holds the program record with 13 wins in a season.

This year’s Wolf squad went out and methodically drilled Klahowya, then took time to honor its splendid seniors, seven players who form the core of a reborn program.

Katrina McGranahan, Hope Lodell, Kyla Briscoe, Allison Wenzel, Lauren Rose, Mikayla Elfrank and Payton Aparicio have played two seasons for coach Cory Whitmore and they have been two of the best seasons the Wolf spikers have ever enjoyed.

Coupeville is 16-1 in league play during his tenure, with the only slight mar a loss to Klahowya last season.

This year, it’s been all-Wolves, all-the-time, and nothing changed Wednesday night.

The largest deficit CHS faced at any moment was two points, and that was erased in a heartbeat by a couple of thunderous Wolf spikes which left divots in the floor and shredded the psyche of the Eagles.

After exchanging points to open the match, Coupeville surged when Lodell made her first trip to the service stripe.

“The Surgeon” sliced a few arms and legs off with a pair of back-to-back aces, then Aparicio and Elfrank painted the back line with wicked winners from the net and the rout was officially on.

While she’s only a superb sophomore, Scout Smith was more than willing to crash the party on Senior Night, and she drove the Eagles batty with her picture-perfect tips.

At one point in the first set, she rattled off three winners in a five-point run, gliding through the air, waiting for the defense to come to her, then angling the ball away from them with the tips of her deadly fingers.

If Klahowya had any thoughts of crowding the net, that quickly vanished as Briscoe pounded a nuclear strike off of an Eagle leg on a play set up by a spectacular last-second poke from Elfrank.

The Wolves were in total control, taking what was given them and exploiting every opportunity.

Elfrank, McGranahan and junior Emma Smith shut down any activity at the net, rising above it to quickly muffle any attacks from the Eagles.

Take a look at my notebook and you see a string of words like “massive hit” (Elfrank), “nasty ace” (Briscoe), “sliced off her kneecaps” (Aparicio) or, simply, “Hulk smash” (Emma Smith) and the picture paints itself.

When Klahowya could rally, the Wolves fought until they found an opening for a winner. But, many, many more times, Coupeville simply put the hammer down.

Which is exactly what Whitmore wants to see as his team heads towards its postseason run.

That the production is team-wide? Even better.

“I like the balance,” he said. “It was a good all-around effort. I get excited seeing our defense transition into offense, from a dig to a set to a put-away.

“I’m really happy with how we are playing.”

CHS spread out its stat sheet excellence, with Briscoe and Aparicio leading the attack with six kills apiece. Elfrank (5), Emma Smith (5) and Scout Smith (4) followed closely on their heels.

Aparicio added 10 digs and five aces, while Lodell (eight digs), Wenzel (7) and Briscoe (7) shared the load when it came time to go low and scrape the ball off the floor.

McGranahan and Ashley Menges tossed in three aces apiece, while Coupeville scored 39 points off of its serves.

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Three times the spikes, three times the wins!!

Posted in Volleyball, tagged , , , , , on October 24, 2017| 1 Comment »

   After winning at Chimacum, Kyla Briscoe and the high-flying CHS spikers haven’t dropped a set in seven league matches. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

   Payton Aparicio (right), here spending quality time with Kayla Rose (left) and Emma Smith, had a school single-game record 18 service aces Tuesday.

By the time the Wolves were done chomping, not a Cowboy was left standing.

Flexing their collective spike-launching muscles, all three Coupeville High School volleyball squads cruised to straight-sets wins Tuesday at Chimacum, keeping their records spotless in conference action.

Take the Wolf varsity, JV and C-Team this season, add them together and they’re a combined 24-3 overall, 17-0 in Olympic League play.

Varsity cruises:

Having clinched a second-straight league title a night earlier, when Klahowya was upset by Port Townsend, Coupeville is playing for perfection.

The Wolves now sit at 7-0 in league play, 10-2 overall after drilling Chimacum (1-6, 1-9) to the tune of 25-13, 25-12, 25-18.

That keeps another streak alive, as well, as CHS has won all 21 sets it has played against league foes this season.

Coupeville returns home Wednesday to face Klahowya (4-3, 6-7) on Senior Night (4:00 varsity/5:15 JV), then wraps the regular season Saturday at Port Townsend (2-5, 4-10).

After that, it’s off to districts in Tacoma Nov. 4.

As the #1 seed from the Olympic League, the Wolves automatically advance to the double elimination portion of the tourney.

Win at least one of two matches and CHS volleyball is state bound for the first time since 2004.

Tuesday night was about getting in the gym, putting a quick and efficient beat-down on the Cowboys and ankling for the last ferry out of town.

But Chimacum, pulling a page out of North Mason’s “stall, stall and stall some more” playbook, stretched things way out, opting to play varsity last even though Coupeville had a set time to leave.

Then, the Cowboys opted to play meaningless third sets in both of the night’s first two matches, hold Senior Night festivities and still take every single minute allotted for the varsity teams to warm up.

Which meant the Wolves were literally racing the clock in the third set, trying to get that 75th and final point on the board before 7:30 PM clicked into view and the CHS bus started spinning its wheels in the parking lot.

They made it, but just barely, with numerous players chipping in to fill up the stat sheet.

“I thought we took care of business well, getting everyone involved in the process and working together,” Coupeville coach Cory Whitmore said. “Our serve was strong, serving to spots and moving the ball around.

“We have to hit with more efficiency come district time, but I thought we came at them from all angles when given the chance.”

Katrina McGranahan led the hit parade, pounding down seven kills, while Payton Aparicio was all over the floor, picking up four kills, six digs and a school single-game record 18 aces on her serve.

“Payton was on fire tonight! Very proud of how hard she has worked on her serve and it has definitely paid off in results,” Whitmore said.

The previous ace record was 13, set in 2010 by Jessica Riddle.

Kyla Briscoe and Mikayla Elfrank added three kills apiece, Hope Lodell went low for eight digs and McGranahan connected on five aces to round out the stat sheet.

JV romps:

The best record for any Coupeville fall sports team belongs to the JV spikers, who raised their record to a sterling 10-1 overall, 7-0 in league play.

Chris Smith’s squad was led by freshman Chelsea Prescott, who scorched the Cowboys with 10 aces during a 25-11, 25-8, 15-12 win.

C-Team rolls:

Coupeville’s third unit capped a 4-0 season with a 25-9, 25-12, 15-13 victory.

The Wolves were powered by the wham-bam serving duo of Heidi Clinkscales, who ripped off 12 aces at the service stripe, and Willow Vick, who pounded away for nine of her own.

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