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CHS cheer punches state ticket

January 27, 2019 by David Svien

Coupeville High School cheer coach BreAnna Boon and senior Julie Bucio share a moment. (Photos courtesy Boon)

The Wolves are off to the state meet for the first time since 2011.

One team, one dream.

“They have far exceeded any expectations I had for them.”

When first-year Coupeville High School cheer coach BreAnna Boon decided to take the Wolves back into the world of competition events, it was a huge change.

CHS has been a sideline-only cheer squad since 2011, when it finished 4th at state, its third top-four finish in a six-year span.

That followed a state title in 2006 and a 2nd place finish a year later.

But Boon, who was a state and national champion during her cheerleading days at Oak Harbor High School, wanted to revive what longtime Wolf coach Sylvia Arnold once brought to the program.

So, ready or not, it was time to get back on the blue mats.

And the Wolves responded, claiming strong finishes at every meet, and then, Saturday at Curtis High School, punching their ticket to the 2019 state meet.

It’ll be a quick turn-around, with the state championships set for Feb. 1-2 in Battle Ground.

Coupeville’s class, Small Game Day, competes on the second day of the event.

To get to state, the Wolves put in two months of work behind the scenes, then adapted to changing up routines on nearly a weekly basis, while never knowing quite what to expect from judges.

“Judging is so opinionated when it comes to cheerleading routines,” Boon said. “You could have different judges every weekend. What one set of judges like, the others may not.

“It’s about finding that magical combination that makes the routine come to life and makes those judges want to get up out of their seats and cheer with you.”

The meet at Curtis was Coupeville’s final shot at punching a ticket to state, and it came during a week when the Wolf squad performed at two home basketball games, prepped for Senior Night festivities and battled the onslaught of cold and flu season.

“We only had two full practices this week, but man did those kids work,” Boon said. “They basically learned a whole new routine Monday and we didn’t want to leave anything on the mat that the judges could critique us for.”

Giving their all and then being rewarded was huge for Coupeville’s athletes.

“The commitment every single cheerleader put towards this team was shown out there on the mat,” said senior Julie Bucio. “We finally got what this team deserved.”

That was a sentiment echoed by junior Ashleigh Battaglia.

“We worked hard and we finally got to see it take us to where we wanted to go,” she said. “I’m so very proud of our squad, and of course, our coach.”

For her part, Coupeville’s leader didn’t realize how hard the moment might hit.

A veteran of cheer competitions who has gone to the heights of the sport herself, seeing the young women under her charge blossom has been huge for Boon.

“When the announcer said Coupeville cheer qualified, I think we all felt like it was a dream!!,” she said. “I was like, did I just imagine he said that??

“But I looked at the kids and they were all screaming, jumping, and hugging each other … annnnd … that’s when I started crying!!,” Boon added. “Who knew the hard cheer coach has a heart?!”

Coupeville had nine cheerleaders on the mat Saturday — Mica Shipley, Battaglia, Kim Castro, Ja’Tarya Hoskins, Emily Fiedler, Bucio, Melia Welling, Bella Velasco, and Coral Caveness — with two others, Marenna Rebischke-Smith and Jaden Marrs, having competed in earlier events.

For their coach, it’s been a wild thrill ride all the way.

“When I originally started this competition team, it was never a goal to go state. It was just to show these kids what competition cheer was,” Boon said. “I wanted them to hit the mat, have a good time, and show people that Coupeville High School existed. Next year we were planning on taking the competition world by storm.

“This year, we were just supposed to get our feet wet in competition. And now we’re going to state! It’s just so unbelievable!”

As the Wolves celebrated into the night (“It was literally a party that could be heard across the world! OK, maybe the parking lot, but still!”), they also took time to share their moment with Arnold, who led the CHS program for 20 years.

“One of my favorite parts of the day was when we got back on the bus, first person we wanted to inform? Sylvia of course!,” Boon said. “The girls left her a voicemail saying, guess what, we’re going to state!

“Sylvia has inspired me to be a stronger, better coach and person. If I can end up even HALF as good as she is, I will consider that a huge accomplishment,” Boon added. “If you can’t learn from the best, you will never be the best!”

As the CHS bus exited the parking lot Saturday, bound for home and then even bigger things, the Wolves and two generations of coaches celebrated long into the night.

“Even our bus driver Karen (Autio) was so happy for the kids,” Boon said. “Honking, screaming, hugs, happy tears.

“It all happened!!”

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Stone, Whitman rally for important win

January 26, 2019 by David Svien

Coupeville grad Makana Stone tossed in 13 points Saturday as Whitman College used a second-half surge to win in Oregon and stay in first-place in the Northwest Conference. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Always be closing, with a vengeance.

A slow start against a low-level team threatened to ruin Saturday for the Whitman College women’s basketball team, but, eventually, sanity prevailed.

Busting loose from a 30-30 tie at the half with host Pacific University, the Blues ruled the second half, eventually escaping with a 69-55 win.

The victory, coming against a team which was just 1-8 in league play, lifts Whitman to 9-1 in the Northwest Conference, 15-4 overall.

The Blues maintain a tie for first place with George Fox (9-1, 16-3), with both teams two games up on Puget Sound (7-3, 14-4) with six regular season games to play.

Whitman currently owns the tiebreaker, having beaten George Fox, the defending league champs, 73-54 back on Jan. 12.

After sweeping two games in two days this weekend in Oregon, the Blues now return to Walla Walla for a four-game home-stand.

Things kick off Tuesday, Jan. 29 against Whitworth, with George Fox coming to town Feb. 8 for a rematch.

Saturday, Whitman jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the game’s first 48 seconds, riding a three-ball from Taylor Chambers and a jumper from Coupeville’s Makana Stone, and things seemed perfectly normal.

Then they got weird for awhile, as Pacific, playing way above its pay grade, snatched the lead and dictated play through much of the first half.

Stone slipped a free throw through the net for the final point of the second quarter, knotting things at 30-30, but few in attendance expected arguably the league’s best and worst teams to be tied after 20 minutes.

But there they were, and then Whitman was back down 32-30 after Pacific slapped in a layup on the first play of the third quarter.

At which point the universe righted itself, with the Blues going on an 11-3 surge, capped by a Stone jumper, that pushed the lead back in favor of the visitors.

From there, the quicker, stronger, better-shooting team began to steadily pull away, forcing the lead out to as much as 21 points in the fourth quarter before Whitman pulled its starters.

Stone finished the night with 13 points, four rebounds, three assists, and a steal, while Mady Burdett paced the Blues with a game-high 20 points.

On the season, Coupeville’s former ace sits with 293 points, 169 rebounds, 37 assists, 23 steals, and 17 blocks.

Stone is shooting 123-240 (51.2%) from the field and 46-59 (77.9%) at the free-throw line.

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Just put me in the game, coach

January 26, 2019 by David Svien

CHS grad Kailey Kellner lets fly during a college basketball game. (Photo courtesy Jennifer Kellner)

Welcome back to the floor.

As she plays her sophomore season at D’Youville College in New York, Coupeville grad Kailey Kellner has seen her minutes bounce all over the place.

She’s far from the only Spartans player to be experiencing this, as their coaches, at least from the outside, seem to be experimenting a bit, mixing and matching lineups.

The key is to stay ready, whether you get three minutes on the floor or a season-high 24, like Kellner did Saturday.

Facing off with league-leading La Roche in Pittsburgh, the former Wolf used her time well, popping for eight points, hauling in three rebounds, dealing out four assists and snatching a steal.

While it wasn’t quite enough to fuel an upset, as the home town powerhouse escaped with a 78-67 win after the game was tied with eight minutes to play, Kellner’s play will hopefully pay off with more-consistent minutes.

Her points came courtesy a long jumper and a pair of three-balls, the second of which knotted the game at 55-55 two minutes into the fourth quarter.

D’Youville is chasing a playoff berth, sitting at 4-7 in Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference play, 7-11 overall.

The Spartans are tied for seventh in a 10-team league, a game off the sixth, and final, playoff berth with seven regular-season games left to play.

Other than La Roche and Hilbert sitting in a tie atop the standings at 10-2, the standings are jammed fairly tightly.

D’Youville is both two games out of shooting all the way up to fourth, and two games away from crashing into dead last place, making the remaining games ultra-important.

The Spartans kick off a three-game home stand next Wednesday, Jan. 30, with Medialle College coming to Buffalo.

Kellner, who is one of seven players on a 13-woman roster to have played all 18 games this season, is averaging 2.3 points a night.

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Wolf boys scrap hard on Senior Night

January 26, 2019 by David Svien

The lone senior on the Coupeville boys basketball roster, Dane Lucero, was  honored Friday night. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Wins were in short supply Friday, but improvement was the buzz word.

All four Coupeville High School basketball teams in action fell to visiting Cedar Park Christian, and the Wolf varsity boys were no exception.

But like the other CHS squads, the margin of said loss was greatly improved from the first meeting between the schools.

For the varsity boys, their earlier trip to Bothell included a painful 70-27 bushwhacking.

Friday night, the Wolves, who were celebrating Senior Night, made things much, much closer, staying within single digits until late in the fourth quarter in a 52-36 loss.

While the defeat drops Coupeville to 1-7 in North Sound Conference play, 2-13 overall, the Wolves still hold the fifth, and final, playoff berth from the six-team league.

With two regular-season games left — road trips to South Whidbey and Granite Falls next week — CHS trails King’s (9-0) CPC (5-3), South Whidbey (5-3) and Sultan (5-4), but is ahead of Granite (0-8).

Hold on to that advantage and the Wolves are off to the double-elimination district playoffs starting Feb. 4.

If Coupeville and Granite finish in a tie, they would meet Saturday, Feb. 2 on Whidbey to decide the #5 seed. Tip-off for that playoff play-in game would be 5 PM.

Facing off with Cedar Park, the Wolves didn’t play perfectly, but they did play with heart and fire.

Coupeville had too many turnovers, mainly off of passes which it would have liked to take back a split second after firing them, but a couple of nice runs on offense kept it within shouting distance all night long.

The first quarter set things in motion, as Sean Toomey-Stout slammed home a put-back off of a sensational offensive rebound, Coupeville’s lone senior, Dane Lucero, dropped in a sweet lil’ hook shot, and Jered Brown singed the nets for a three-ball.

But those baskets came one at a time, and with some chunks of the clock ticking away between them, allowing CPC to claim a 14-7 lead it would never relinquish.

Wolf frosh Hawthorne Wolfe sank a long trey early in the second quarter, only to have the Eagles hit back-to-back three-balls of their own on the next two trips down the floor.

Down by 12, with the game starting to slip away, Coupeville dug in for one of its two extended runs on offense.

Keyed by Gavin Knoblich, who was everywhere and nowhere at once, cleaning the boards, then using his long arms to reach in and poke balls away, the Wolves closed the half on an 8-3 run.

Almost.

Buckets from Ulrik Wells, Brown, Toomey-Stout, and Knoblich cut the lead to seven and CHS had the momentum heading towards the break.

Unfortunately, Cedar Park exploited a let-down on defense, with its point guard slicing right up the middle, uncontested, for a layup which hit the bottom of the net just as the horn sounded.

The bucket staggered the Wolves, who also came out a bit lethargic to start the third.

Despite a strong power move in the paint for a bucket by Jacobi Pilgrim, and a sensational three-ball by Wolfe, who fired it off his left shoulder while hanging in mid-air, CPC began to pull away.

Up by 15 heading into the fourth, the Eagles met a final burst of resistance from Coupeville, which cut the margin back to nine on a pair of Wells free throws.

Right after that, though, Knoblich fouled out, and without the Energizer bunny-style energy he brought to the floor Friday, CHS finally hit the wall.

While Cedar Park tossed in seven straight points across the final 90 seconds to make the final score a bit skewed, Coupeville coach Brad Sherman could see some positives in how his squad handled the rematch.

“It was a huge improvement for our guys; they battled,” he said. “We had a way better effort on defense and on the boards this time around.

“We had some good looks (on shots), but just couldn’t get them all to fall tonight.”

Brown finished with nine points to pace the Wolves, while Toomey-Stout banked home seven and the duo of Wells and Wolfe chipped in with six apiece.

Pilgrim (4), Lucero (2), and Knoblich (2) also scored, with Mason Grove helping out with scrambling defense and some quality set-up passes.

Perhaps lost in the haze of the game was a historical note, as Wolfe became the highest-scoring freshman boy in 102 years of CHS basketball.

His first three-ball tied him with Mike Bagby at 137 points, and his second one moved this year’s leading varsity scorer to a solid 140.

While Wolfe has passed every other Coupeville boy, there are still four girls ahead of him.

He has a strong chance of catching Megan Smith (161) and Ashley Ellsworth-Bagby (163), but may not have enough games left to make a run at Novi Barron (242) or Brianne King (275).

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Free-throw woes knife Wolf girls

January 26, 2019 by David Svien

Ema Smith rippled the nets for 10 points Friday, as Coupeville made a play to upset Cedar Park Christian. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The upset died at the free-throw line.

The Coupeville High School varsity girls basketball team played often-superb defense Friday night, hit some pressure-packed shots, and didn’t flinch when facing a very-talented foe.

But the one part of the game that the Wolves totally controlled — walking to the charity stripe with the clock stopped, then sinking shots — failed, and so did any hope of shocking visiting Cedar Park Christian.

Bouncing 12 of 22 free throws off the rim, Coupeville fell 37-28 and saw its chances to finish in the top two of the six-team North Sound Conference vanish.

With the loss, the Wolves drop to 5-3 in league play, 7-8 overall, and clinch third place, a slot better than where the preseason coaches poll had them finishing.

Coupeville, which has two regular season games left, will finish behind league champ King’s (8-0) and CPC (7-2), and ahead of Granite Falls (2-6), Sultan (2-6), and South Whidbey (0-7).

After hosting King’s next Tuesday, and traveling to Granite Friday, the Wolves open the double-elimination district tourney Feb. 4 on the road at Meridian.

If Coupeville had won Friday, it would have gone a half game up on CPC and still been in contention for second-place, and the home playoff opener which comes with that finish.

And, after losing by 20 points in Bothell the first time these teams played, the Wolves looked like a team very interested in playing out that scenario.

Forcing CPC star Irena Korolenko into a poor shooting performance, at least for awhile, Coupeville claimed the early lead and stayed within a bucket late into the third quarter.

Hannah Davidson, who hit the boards with a nice intensity, opened the scoring when she ripped a carom away from an Eagle and went right back up with it for the night’s first bucket.

Add an Ema Smith free throw and the Wolves were up 3-0, and ready to claim the win if the game had been called early.

It was not, however, and CPC reclaimed the lead for good at 4-3 late in the first quarter on a turnaround jumper from Korolenko.

Up 8-3 at the initial break, the Eagles stretched the lead to 10-3, but Coupeville didn’t back down this time out.

Ema Smith spiked a CPC shot back up-court, then followed the ball and sank a long three-ball when Scout Smith threaded a pass between defenders and onto her older teammate’s fingertips.

Another Scout Smith special, this one an outlet pass which soared through the air and dropped into the waiting arms of a sprinting Lindsey Roberts, kept the pressure on.

While Korolenko had eight points at the half, that was a bucket less than she scored in just the first quarter the last time the teams met, and a 14-10 deficit at the break certainly didn’t seem insurmountable.

CHS kept up the pressure in the third, forcing the Eagles out of their comfort zone, and staying within a basket until the final minute of the frame.

The Wolves couldn’t quite get over the hump, however, cutting the margin to 14-13 and 18-16, but missing free throws which would have given them the lead.

Meanwhile, Korolenko, who took, and hit, all seven Cedar Park free throws on the night, whistled four straight freebies through the net to close the third, then opened the fourth with a three-point play the hard way.

Suddenly, a one-score game had momentarily gotten out of hand, with the visitors up 27-16 and seemingly pulling away.

But, after some words of wisdom from coach David King, the Wolves got buckets from Ema Smith and Chelsea Prescott, packaged around a free throw, and the deficit was back to a manageable six points.

Korolenko is a star for a reason, though, and, after being “held” to 14 points through three quarters, she torched the Wolves for 11 more in the fourth.

While two long jumpers and a layup off an inbound pass stung, the ultimate killer came on a basket set up when Cedar Park saved a runaway ball at the last millisecond, and, against all odds, turned it into a gut-punch of a bucket.

Scrambling towards the line, Korolenko got her finger on the ball, somehow spinning it back onto the court as she crashed into the back wall.

As the ball hit the court, it took a perfect spin (for CPC), shooting between two Wolves and right to a surprised Eagle, who immediately hit a soft lil’ jumper in the paint.

Coupeville kept coming, with Scout Smith nailing a three-ball from the top of the arc to cut the margin to 33-28, but the Wolves couldn’t score across the final minute-plus, and Korolenko ended things with two more perfect free throws.

CHS, which missed three free throws in the first quarter, four more in the second, three in the third, and two in the fourth, was left to contemplate what could have been.

And what could still be, if the teams meet a third time in the postseason.

Ema Smith, who has been on a shooting tear of late, paced the Wolves with 10 points, pulling her within a single free throw of becoming the 55th Coupeville girl to score 200 in their career.

Davidson (4), Roberts (4), Scout Smith (4), Prescott (3), Avalon Renninger (2), and Ja’Kenya Hoskins (1) also scored, while Roberts and Hoskins snatched eight rebounds apiece.

Renninger dealt out three assists, Scout Smith pilfered two steals, and Ema Smith registered two blocks.

 

No JV:

Cedar Park doesn’t have a second team, so Coupeville’s young guns sat Friday night out.

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