Izzy Wells snags a rebound during the last high school game played by CHS before COVID-19 shut things down. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Six months down. Five to go?
Well, it’s a yes to the former, a maybe to the latter.
Tuesday – August 11, 2020 – marks six full months since the last time a Coupeville High School athletic team played an officially sanctioned game in any sport.
Way back on Feb. 11, the Wolf girls basketball team fell beneath a hail of three-point bombs put up by visiting Meridian, and was ushered out of the district playoffs after absorbing its second loss in as many nights.
That brought a close to a strong 12-7 campaign for CHS, playing its first season under new coach Scott Fox.
With nine of 13 players who scored during the season eligible to return, plus supernova sophomore Ja’Kenya Hoskins, who was injured the whole year, the future was, and is, a bright one.
At the time, the sadness of a season ending was muted by the knowledge most of the Wolf players would roll on into spring sports, returning to softball fields, tennis courts, or track ovals.
When the last stragglers exited the gym the night of Feb. 11, they had no way of knowing what was coming, or, what was probably already lingering in the air.
The rise of COVID-19, the moment when it went from being a whisper to a full-blown pandemic, was still around the corner, and no one knew the shutdown of sports was on its way.
Now, as we sit six months down the road, we know Wolf athletes never got a chance to play that spring sports season.
And, we know that after a summer in which traditional activities like little league were left by the wayside, there will be no fall high school sports season.
The good news is that fall, unlike spring, is not being outright cancelled, but instead moved, with sports such as football and volleyball hopping from September starts to March beginnings.
The hope, put forth by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, is that high school sports will return at the start of 2021, with basketball picking up where it left off.
Right now, practices are set to start the last week of December, with a compressed season, in which schools can play 70% of a normal schedule, beginning in January.
Then, if things hold, fall sports occupy March and April, and spring sports return in May and June.
But, as we know, COVID-19 operates as it chooses to operate, and not how we might like it to, meaning nothing is set in stone.
This week, though, we note the six-month anniversary of high school sports being AWOL in Coupeville.
I say “note,” because “celebrate” is probably not the right word.
Instead of being mad, though, we can look back to that last game and remember the highlights, of what was, and what can be again.
Facing off with an ultra-aggressive, very-successful Meridian squad which made it all the way to state, Coupeville had to dig out of a hole all night long.
Which doesn’t mean the Wolves didn’t have their spotlight moments.
Midway through the second quarter, sparked by a steal and bucket from senior Scout Smith, CHS went on a 10-4 surge.
During that run, underclassmen Anya Leavell, Carolyn Lhamon, and Maddie Georges all scored, with Smith setting up Leavell on a note-perfect pass slipped between backpedaling defenders.
Then, late in the game, popular Wolf senior Tia Wurzrainer, celebrating her birthday, pulled up on the move and hit nothing but net on the final jump shot of her stellar prep hoops career.
That sent Coupeville fans into a tizzy in what would be, for now, the final great explosion by Wolf faithful at a high school sports event.
The six months since have been far quieter, and there is no doubt, far lonelier for many.
But the future is unwritten.
Just as we didn’t know that night that things would take a turn for the worse, some day we may look back at today and say, hey, this was where it all began to turn around.
So, I say, stay positive. Look forward. Continue to work.
There will be a day where, once again, Wolf athletes will play, Coupeville fans will be in the stands, and life will be back in a more-familiar rhythm.
None of us know how many hours, days, or months that will be.
But it will be. That I know.
