Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Volleyball’ Category

Monica Vidoni: Catch a Rising Star!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, Softball, Volleyball on October 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Monica Vidoni

Bessie Walstad may not know this, but she is a huge role model.

A four-year star in three sports (volleyball, basketball, softball), the Coupeville High School senior is inspiring the players coming up behind her, young women who hope to one day take her place both on the court and as a mentor.

One of those players, sophomore three-sport threat Monica Vidoni, is very clear in her admiration for Walstad.

“It’s sad that she will be leaving high school this year. Bessie is a big role model to me,” Vidoni said. “I always watch her in sports because there is a lot to learn from her. I still have a lot more to learn from her. She’s always the one to support me, after a bad game, or if I’m having a bad day.

“If you ever need help in volleyball, basketball, or softball, Bessie is the person to ask!”

Vidoni, whose younger brother James (“A wonderful brother!”) suits up for the Coupeville Middle School football squad, plays middle front in volleyball, patrols the post in basketball and bounces around between first, second and the outfield in softball. She was also a standout discus thrower during her middle school days, but had to let that go at the high school level when she chose softball as her spring sport.

While she enjoys all of her sports, and shows great promise as a potential rising star, it’s basketball which lays claim to her heart.

“Basketball is my favorite sport. I’ve been playing since kindergarten, maybe first grade,” Vidoni said. “I fell in love with the sport when my dad brought home the small basketball and hoop.“

Along with Walstad, she credits her father, who has officiated football, basketball and baseball games for three-plus decades, and her eighth grade basketball coach, as having the biggest impact on her sporting career.

“My dad is a big part of my life,” Vidoni said. “He is a big athletic supporter and he is a great help to me. I wouldn’t be the person I am today with out him!”

While her dad gave Vidoni her fighting spirit and natural talent, her coach helped to bring that talent out, while retaining the fun of the game.

“My eighth grade basketball coach, Coach O’Keefe, made a humongous impact in my basketball career,” Vidoni said. “He always put a smile on my face when I was feeling down, or having a bad day. He taught me new basketball tricks, and post moves that I still do today. He was always there for me, and my team.

“He taught me so much. It was a pain to leave middle school basketball,” she added. “I wouldn’t be the basketball player I am now with out him. He will always be my favorite basketball coach!“

Vidoni’s interests away from the sports arena are diverse. A fan of techno and dubstep music, she enjoys biology and weight training and has hopes of learning the French and Japanese languages. She’s interested in becoming a computer programmer and would like to one day play college basketball, as well.

First, though, she has plenty of time to become a star at the high school level, and then, like her mentor, become a role model for another generation. Be Like Bessie is a mantra that helps drive her. Be Like Vidoni may be the mantra for the next wave of Wolf athletes.

Read Full Post »

Big city girl finds American dream in small town!!

Posted in Cheer, Volleyball on October 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

  Belgium and Coupeville meet, as Wolf cheerleaders Iris Ryckaert (right) and Breeanna Messner share a moment on the sideline.

Iris Ryckaert is taking full advantage of her time in America, playing volleyball in addition to cheering. Her partner here, Emilee Crichton (on left) also does both.

Iris Ryckaert is not from around here, and yet she fits right in.

The bubbly Coupeville High School senior, who is balancing dual roles as a Wolf cheerleader and a volleyball player, hails from Belgium. Now the foreign exchange student has swapped all-day school and close access to the mall in a 20,000 person city for a town where there’s still a blinking light at one of the two main intersections and where she can live out her slice of the American Dream.

Having no clue of where she would be placed — she lives with a host couple in Oak Harbor and their three little children — Ryckaert came to Coupeville with no expectations. What she has found has delighted her, however.

“I like Coupeville because it’s small, so everybody knows everybody and people are very nice!,” Ryckaert said. “The advantage of this small school is that I could participate in the high school sports and that it’s easier to make friends.

“I’m really happy to be in this lovely small town called Coupeville!,” she added. “Chance has it right! Because all goes well.”

At home, Ryckaert attended school from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM each day, with another two hours of homework on top of that. Facing an American curriculum has not been especially daunting for her, but she has enjoyed the small differences.

“School is very, very different in Belgium. Here it’s very easy,” Ryckaert said. “But what I really like in the school here, is that the teachers and the student are like close together. Because in Belgium there is a big distance between teachers and student. They are stricter. But here we have a lot of fun with teachers.”

The addition of sports to her life — in Europe they opt for club sports over high school teams and Ryckaert played a bit of tennis — has been a great cause of joy for this world traveler.

“I was so excited and I really wanted to be part of a high school sports team. It was one of the things that I really wanted to experience here,” Ryckaert said. “I’ve never played volleyball before, but I really love it!!

 “I will probably continue volleyball next year in Belgium,” she added. “I really like to practice sport every day and to stay in good shape. The games are very exciting for me, even when we lose!”

Never one to back down from a challenge, Ryckaert also dove head-first into that most American of pastimes, waving her pom poms for the most peppy coach in all the land, cheer guru Sylvia Arnold.

“Cheerleading, cheerleading … we don’t have that in Europe either,” Ryckaert said. “It’s typically American, so I really wanted to experience cheerleading, too!

“And I love it! It’s very funny and it’s like in the American movies, or it’s part of what you can call the American dream,” she added. “I love cheerleading, and all the girls inside the team are lovely!”

Ryckaert, who has an older sister who lives in the South of France, plans to return to the highly-charged academic life after her year abroad. She will attend the university in her city and study economics. When she does go home, she will take back valuable lessons with her.

“I always wanted to leave one year after my high school years,” Ryckaert said. “The main reason is, of course, to perfect my English, because it is, for me, essential for my professional future. But it’s also a human and cultural experience because I meet a different culture, so different people.

“And thanks to this year, I will be mentally stronger, because it’s not always easy to be far from my country and my family,” she added. “It’s not easy to live something totally different. So, I’ll be more mature to confront my future life.”

Read Full Post »

Weekends? We don’t need no stinkin’ weekends!!

Posted in Community Sports, Girls Basketball, Softball, Volleyball on October 2, 2012| 2 Comments »

           Miranda Engle (back row, far left), the Kiel sisters (back row middle and front row second from left) and Monica Vidoni (front row far right) join their weekend basketball teammates. (MaryAnn Engle photo)

Sports are a full-time, seven-day-a-week occupation.

At least it seems that way for many high school athletes, as they work in select teams around their school squads.

Just a quick glance reveals that Coupeville High School soccer player Madison Tisa McPhee competes in horse riding events. Miranda Engle, Monica Vidoni and the Kiel sisters (Katie and Kacie), among others, play on the Wolf volleyball squad during the week and a basketball team on the weekend, as shown in the above photo. Tennis players Zane Bundy and Dawson d’Almeida moonlight as select premier league soccer players in Burlington.

And at least three Wolves — Hailey Hammer, McKayla Bailey and Madeline Roberts — are currently playing softball, even though we are nowhere near the spring high school season.

Roberts and Hammer play for the Washington Phantoms, an 18 and under team that competed in their fall state tournament this past weekend, placing 8th. Roberts, a scrappy infielder, has been on the team for two seasons, while Hammer brought her homer-hittin’ power to the squad this year.

Bailey, who was a strong number two pitcher for the Wolves as a freshman (backing up since-graduated Alexis Trumbull) is playing year-round select softball. Her team is actually kicking off its fall season and will travel to Huntington Beach, California on Oct. 20 for a college-exposure tournament.

She and her teammates got a jump on preparation for the tourney with a game last Saturday that was more about getting to know one another than actually keeping track of stats.

“We have some new players and we are still trying to gel together and get to know each others playing styles,” Bailey said. “As for myself, I know I could have done better, but I was happy with my discipline at the plate and my ability to work the count.

Read Full Post »

Wolves refuse to phone it in (unlike Cedarcrest coach)!!

Posted in Volleyball on October 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

    Sydney Aparicio, seen here returning a ball in a match earlier this season, was one of many Wolves to sacrifice her body diving for balls against Cedarcrest. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

It didn’t last long enough, but there was a little something for everyone at Tuesday night’s Coupeville-Cedarcrest volleyball match.

A couple of truly impressive, knee-rattling spikes flying off of the finger tips of Cedarcrest players, which seemed to please their fans, and their coach, when he wasn’t checking his cell phone repeatedly during the third set.

Tremendous hustle from a Coupeville squad that refused to roll over and play dead against a top 2A school, with Sydney Aparicio flinging herself repeatedly onto the floor in pursuit of balls and Allie Hanigan and Megan Oakes jointly crashing through their team bench in pursuit of a ball.

Player mom and Wolf supporter supreme Aimee Bishop getting an already-loud student section to go bonkers right as Hailey Hammer and Madeline Strasburg delivered booming spikes of their own.

The end result, a 25-9, 25-16, 25-11 loss to the visiting Red Wolves, wasn’t the best capper on the evening. But if you focus on the moments in between, and not the loss as a whole, which dropped Coupeville to 2-7 overall, 1-7 in Cascade Conference play, there was much to be happy about.

Other than a few moments where Cedarcrest ace Valerie Koch got rolling behind the service stripe and threw down a bunch of points in a hurry, things were fairly close.

Breeanna Messner opened the scoring with a nice little tip that froze the Cedarcrest defense in place and a few moments later Hannigan emulated the slick move, tying the score at 3-3. Then Koch got molten-hot to the tune of nine straight points, until Haley Sherman stepped up, said “No, ma’am!” and snapped the run with a laser shot that nipped the line.

Coupeville put together a couple of nice runs — including one in the third set that was fueled by another picture-perfect Messner tip that split the defenders, a nice spike from Hannigan and a hustle play by Katie Kiel to breathe new life into a rally that seemed dead. Toss in strong efforts by Lauren Escalle and Amanda Fabrizi (with injured star Bessie Walstad acting as an unpaid, but active, assistant coach) and hope still burns for Wolf volleyball.

Early in the evening, the Wolf JV squad fell 25-8, 25-8, 25-12 in a match that featured a smashing performance by Sydney Autio — especially in the third set — strong all-around play from Kenzie Kooch, Kacie Kiel and McKenzie Bailey and a portrait-worthy tip by Rhiannon Ellsworth.

Read Full Post »

Homecoming week kicks off with volleyball shocker!!

Posted in Homecoming, Volleyball on October 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Part of the Class of 2014 bask in the glow of their win at Coupeville High School’s annual Top Gun volleyball clash. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

For one night the juniors ruled the school.

Upending years of tradition, the Coupeville High School junior class shocked the world and ran away with the annual Top Gun volleyball competition title Monday, knocking off the seniors and officially kicking off a week of Homecoming festivities.

Things culminate Friday with the school’s second annual Homecoming parade, which will travel from Main Street to Front Street and back beginning at 3 PM. It will include class floats, the CHS band and cheer squad, fall athletes, the Homecoming court, alumni and parade marshals Marci and Denny Zylstra.

The Homecoming game, featuring hapless victim Granite Falls, kicks off at 7 PM.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »