Coupeville Sports

   Wolf seniors (l to r) Amanda Fabrizi, Sydney Aparicio, Breeanna Messner, Haley Sherman, Megan Oakes and Allie Hanigan. (Robert Bishop photo)

They’re going out on top.

Playing their best volleyball of the year — with two wins in three matches, sandwiched around a near five-set upset of big, bad ATM — the six seniors who lead the Coupeville High School spikers will take a final bow Tuesday night.

With only two of three 1A schools in the eight-team 1A/2A Cascade Conference making the playoffs this season, there will be no postseason run for the 3-11 Wolves.

The opponent is always-tough King’s, with JV at 5:30 and Senior Night for the varsity at 7.

Starting their year-long lap of bidding farewell to their time in the red and black are Breeanna Messner, Megan Oakes, Amanda Fabrizi, Haley Sherman, Allie Hanigan and Sydney Aparicio.

Basketball, softball and tennis farewells still await further down the road for the six-pack.

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 Valen Trujillo (left) and Emily Coulter team up to kick-start the offense in an earlier season match. (John Fisken photo)

Even in a loss, the Coupeville High School JV volleyball squad is entertaining.

A pack of rarely-say-die players, the Wolves have taken great strides as the season has played out. And now, with one final home match against King’s next Tuesday, they continue to show signs of what they will hopefully bring to the varsity team in years to come.

“Our team is fun to watch, and during games last night, I saw sparks of the drills we do in practice coming to life,” said CHS coach Amy King. “Sometimes they wonder why we do certain drills and they are finding out that these situations I put them in are really used in games.

“The JV team has come so far from the first practice of the season – every one of them has grown with their skill levels and competitiveness,” she added. “I love the excitement on their faces when they do something on the court that they have never done before. Win or Lose, it is REALLY how you play the game.”

Playing at Granite Falls Thursday, the Wolves showed that spark, fighting hard before being nipped at the end 25-12, 17-25, 25-18.

Winning the second set, Coupeville used powerful serving from Miranda Engle and McKenzie Bailey to set things up, and floor-shaking kills from Monica Vidoni to finish them off.

Engle and Bailey were mirror images, each nailing seven good serves and slapping three aces past the Tigers. Once the ball was in play, Vidoni patrolled the net ruthlessly, smashing home four kills, while collecting a sweet tip for good measure.

“We had a lot of rallies which were fun to watch,” King said. “Getting help from everyone – great ups by Emily (Coulter), Ally (Roberts), Lauren (Grove), Tiffany (Briscoe) and Valen (Trujillo).”

In the deciding set, Granite roared out to a 12-point lead, but Bailey went to work and made things close at the end. Reeling off power serves like a machine, she delivered six winners, including two aces.

The play of the set came from Grove, as she came through with “a really nice tip that messed with the other team.”

The opening set was a mixed bag, as a strong start and finish couldn’t overcome a bout of “moving in slow motion” in the middle.

Briscoe and Bailey each thumped three kills during the set while Jae LeVine “took care of the back row while in the libero with a lot of nice ups.”

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 Megan Oakes, here serving in an earlier season match, played inspired volleyball Thursday. (John Fisken photo)

They’re getting red hot right as their season runs out of time.

Winning for the second time in three matches, the Coupeville High School volleyball squad pounded host Granite Falls in four sets Thursday.

With the victories packaged around an almost-upset of powerful ATM, which needed five sets and barely escaped, the Wolves are playing at the top of their collective games.

Unfortunately, there’s only one more match left in the regular season, with Senior Night coming up Tuesday, with King’s visiting The Rock.

On the road in Granite Falls, Coupeville found its spark from senior setter Megan Oakes, who had her best performance of the season.

She was nearly flawless on her sets (118 of 120), doling out 26 assists to pace the Wolves to a 25-23, 25-17, 20-25, 25-22 win.

“Megan did a great job in the setter’s position and helped the team step up their game,” said Coupeville coach Kirsty Croghan. “A great win for the team. They are improving every match.”

The victory lifted the Wolves to 3-11 overall, 2-11 in Cascade Conference play.

Oakes set the table and Hailey Hammer (11 kills) and Madeline Strasburg (10 kills) delivered the knee-bucklers.

Allie Hanigan controlled the net, with five blocks, while the trio of Amanda Fabrizi (18 of 20), Breeanna Messner (18 of 22) and Haley Sherman (13 of 16) provided a consistently strong response on service returns.

At the service stripe, Coupeville was electric, with three Wolves absolutely perfect. Hammer (16 of 16), Kacie Kiel (16 of 16 with three aces) and Messner (10 of 10 with three aces) were flawless.

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Jae LeVine always rocks the house. Always. (Robert Bishop photo)

Coupeville High School freshman Jae LeVine, the mightiest of mighty mites, is a perpetual motion machine during her volleyball matches.

Tuesday night was no different, as she flew in and out of the gym at breakneck speed between sets of the JV match, changing her shirt each time depending on whether she was the libero or not, then flinging the discarded jersey at her dad Sean’s head as she sprinted by the stands.

And, while the Wolves fell 25-15, 25-21, 25-19 in a fairly competitive match with visiting Archbishop Thomas Murphy, it was LeVine’s serve midway through the third set that was the play of the night.

Coming after a play on which teammate Emily Coulter saved the ball while almost sacrificing her face on the back wall, LeVine was already bouncy as she stepped up to serve.

Then she dropped a twisty, turny shot that slid over the net and found the absolute razor-thin corner of the service area as two ATM players jerked back, thinking the ball was going out of play.

Instead, there was a brief moment of quiet, the ref signaled the ace and LeVine, her smile beaming from one end of town to the other, did an impromptu happy dance.

The rest of the match? It was a back-and-forth affair with strong runs at the service stripe from Valen Trujillo, McKenzie Bailey and Miranda Engle, an occasional thundering kill from Monica Vidoni and Tiffany Briscoe and several nice hustle plays from Ally Roberts and Lauren Grove.

The best run of the night came in the middle set, when Coupeville jumped out to a 17-13 lead, highlighted by an intense rally where Vidoni saved a ball at the last second with a thrown-out arm, giving Trujillo time to move in for the ensuing kill.

ATM went on a big run after that, but a knee-buckler from Briscoe got the Wolves back in the game and they pulled within two before back-to-back ATM shots that ricocheted off of CHS players ended the rally.

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Kacie Kiel, seen here in an earlier-season match, was a hitting machine Tuesday. (John Fisken photo)

Well, at least the ATM coach gets to keep his job.

After five sets of sweating bullets and getting downright whiny with the refs at one moment Tuesday night, the Archbishop Thomas Murphy volleyball coach didn’t have to explain to his superiors how the poshest of private schools had lost to the smallest of public schools.

But don’t think the thought didn’t cross his frazzled mind two or three times.

Buoyed by an emotional rush from playing on a night when they honored those fighting all forms of cancer — including the father of one of their own — the Coupeville spikers left the court covered in floor burns from head to toe, winners of a huge moral victory if not an actual win.

The cold, hard facts will say the visiting Wildcats escaped with a 22-25, 25-14, 19-25, 25-16, 15-10 victory, a loss that dropped the Wolves to 2-11 with two matches remaining.

What that won’t tell you is the number of times Breeanna Messner went face-first after a ball she should have had no chance at reaching, but did. The number of times Amanda Fabrizi or Haley Sherman got a hand, or an elbow, or a finger, on the ball at the last second to keep a rally alive long after it should have died.

The score won’t tell you the look on Sydney Autio’s face as she ran off a string of points at the service stripe, playing for herself, her teammates and something much bigger, much deeper.

After one too many knee-quaking kills from an ATM freshman outside hitter who looks fully ready to be playing on a college scholarship right now, time ran out on Coupeville.

Their commitment to each other never did, and it is a testament to their spirit that there were more smiles and hugs afterward than tears or downcast faces.

“I will take this any night,” said CHS coach Kirsty Croghan in the commotion afterward.

“Fun game for the girls tonight. The team is realizing that they can compete and win against these tougher teams in our league.”

The Wolves were at their best in the first and third sets, using a run of crippling kills from Hailey Hammer and superb blocking from Allie Hanigan and Kacie Kiel to stuff the Wildcats every time they tried to surge.

One of the defining moments of the match came at 20-18 in the first set, when Messner sold out completely, sacrificing her body twice to keep the point alive, before Hammer did what she does best, driving the nail home with one mighty swing of her fist.

At set point, Autio found the one open spot on the court, dumping a picture-perfect tip between two Wildcats, then beaming like a million-watt light-bulb when she realized what she had done.

After hitting a rough spot in the second set, Coupeville rebounded quickly in the third, with Hanigan, Sherman and Madeline Strasburg flying around everywhere.

After everyone watched the ATM coach get huffy over a call, then demand a time out in a voice that sounded like he might start crying, Kiel closed out the set with a thunderous, nonreturnable serve.

Things slipped away a bit at the end, but even then, the Wolves refused to go down easily, keeping numerous points alive longer than expected.

Coupeville was especially effective from the service stripe, with Autio (22 of 24 with eight aces), Hammer (18 of 18 with five aces) and Messner (14 of 15) leading the way.

Hammer (13 kills, two blocks), Hanigan (five kills, two blocks) and Autio (20 assists) sparkled on offense, while Messner (22 of 22 on service receiving), Fabrizi (15 of 18) and Sydney Aparicio (11 of 11) bolstered the defense against the big-hitting Wildcats.

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