Kyla Briscoe pounds home a winner. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
Ready to rain down terror on hapless foes.
Katrina McGranahan (left) and Mikayla Elfrank form an impenetrable wall.
Six players firing as one.
It was one of the most dominant seasons ever put together by a Coupeville High School sports team.
The 2017 Wolf spikers tied the program record for wins (13), went to state for the first time since 2004 and captured a second-straight Olympic League crown.
Oh, and CHS also won all 27 sets it played against league foes Klahowya, Port Townsend and Chimacum.
You read that right.
Merely going 9-0, and joining girls basketball as the only Coupeville varsity programs to hit that mark in league play, wasn’t enough. These Wolves needed total freakin’ domination.
For league perfection, for rewriting the record books, and for their success on the floor, in the classroom and in the community, the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame welcomes the 2017 CHS varsity spikers to our hallowed digital halls.
After this, you’ll find them hanging out at the top of the blog, under the Legends tab.
It’s easy to forget that, just four years ago, when this year’s seniors were freshmen, Wolf volleyball went 1-11 during the first season of the Olympic League.
It was all uphill from there, bouncing to six wins and a district playoff victory over Seattle Christian, then 11 wins and a league title, before culminating in an inspired 2017 campaign.
Coupeville twice won five matches in a row, beat a pair of large-school 2A teams (North Mason and Port Angeles) and overcame a schedule in which it played 13 of 18 matches on the road.
Its only losses in the regular season were to Bellevue Christian, which went to state, and 2A Sequim, and CHS came up big in the postseason.
After a tough brawl in a rematch with BC to open districts, the Wolves swatted Cascade Christian — the school which sent them home as sophomores — to punch their ticket to state.
Once it hit Yakima, Coupeville found itself in the “Group of Death,” wedged in with undefeated Castle Rock, undefeated defending state champ Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls) and eventual new state champ King’s.
The Wolves didn’t go down easy, though, taking a set from Castle Rock and holding their own in the midst of the madhouse that is the state volleyball tourney.
Even at the end, Coupeville’s spikers displayed the kind of poise and big-play mentality which served them well all season.
This was a squad which produced a league MVP in Hope Lodell, First-Team All-Conference picks in Mikayla Elfrank, Katrina McGranahan and Lauren Rose and a record-buster in Payton Aparicio.
The latter drilled 18 service aces in a late-season match, shattering the previous school record of 13, set by Jessica Riddle back in 2010.
The Wolves were rich in seniors — Kyla Briscoe, bouncing back after missing a year from injury to become a spike-happy wild woman at the net, and always-dependable Allison Wenzel complete the Magnificent Seven.
But while their graduation will leave a hole, the future is bright.
Two juniors, two sophomores and one freshman also saw floor time for Coupeville, and the JV (12-1) and C-Team (4-0) form an especially-strong farm system.
In just two years on the job, CHS coach Cory Whitmore has taken what previous coaches set up, and kicked the program into a different gear.
His current players have held free clinics for the lil’ kids who are the future of the program, and the numbers of participants they have pulled in has been astounding.
Even as Coupeville volleyball celebrates highs it hasn’t seen in a decade-plus, there is an unmistakable feeling this is just the beginning.
But, when we get a couple of years down the line and see things play out, we’ll still be able to look back and honor the team which launched the new revolution.
Today, we induct the 2017 varsity spikers into our lil’ Hall o’ Fame, 12 young women (and their support crew) who sent a bolt of lightning through Wolf Nation.
Inducted together, as a team:
Payton Aparicio
Kyla Briscoe
Mikayla Elfrank
Hope Lodell
Katrina McGranahan
Ashley Menges
Chelsea Prescott
Lauren Rose
Emma Smith
Scout Smith
Maya Toomey-Stout
Allison Wenzel
Cory Whitmore (head coach)
Ashley Herndon (assistant coach)
Chris Smith (assistant coach)
Kayla Rose (manager)
