Genna Wright, thoroughly enjoying every moment of her athletic career. (John Fisken photo)
The little sister can kick your fanny, too.
Genna Wright is one of the most naturally exuberant athletes to ever grace Coupeville, epic smile beaming from coast to coast every time she plays, regardless of the sport or the outcome of the game.
Truth be told, though, she has a lot more good plays than bad.
Which is only fitting, since she comes from a family jam-packed with current and former Wolf stars that include Genna’s siblings and cousins alike.
Monday, the youngest in the family firmly seized the spotlight, torching Blue Heron for 20 points in her last hoops game in a Coupeville Middle School uniform.
Popping jumpers from everywhere on the floor, crashing the boards, leading the break, Wright was a one-woman wrecking ball, sparking the Wolf 8th graders to a 56-6 romp in their season finale.
Toss in a 24-10 win for the CMS 7th graders and things came to a positive end all around.
With the victories, the young guns finished 6-4 for first-year coach Megan Smith, while the “older” crew topped out at 3-7 for departing coach Ryan King.
We put older in parenthesis, since there were only four 8th graders playing this year, requiring the CMS coaches to shuffle players around all season.
Monday, it didn’t matter much which players were on the floor for the Wolves, cause they all shot the lights out.
8th grade:
Three plays in and the game was over.
Wolf scoring ace Chelsea Prescott put a rebound back up and in, knocked down a layup off a pass from Mollie Bailey, then circled around, paused for a second to see if big brother Devin was paying attention and sliced through the defense for a third-straight bucket.
At which point Wright waved her hand, bellowed “Hold my water!” and really unleashed (metaphorical) death and destruction.
By the time she was done (for a moment), she had racked up 10 points in the first quarter alone and CMS was sitting up 24-3 at the first break.
In between Wright’s early buckets, three of which came off of steals, the Wolves got a sweet jumper from Bailey, a steal and pedal-to-the-metal layup from Heidi Clinkscales and one more eye-popper from Prescott.
Picking the pocket of a Blue Heron player, #23 spun down the left side of the court, slashed to her right at the last moment, then arm way out in front of her, dropped a scoop shot high off the glass.
The one and only shot the visitors hit in the first half was a thing of beauty, a three-ball from way behind the arc lofted by Blue Heron’s smallest, but maybe hardest-charging player.
With the game way, way out of reach, King and his squad did everything possible to not inflict any more damage than necessary.
Wright, who had 16 at the half, settled for just two jumpers after the break, instead looking to set up her teammates.
It worked, as all nine Wolves who saw action in the nightcap scored a bucket, with the biggest roar reserved for 7th grader Lily Leedy.
A plucky ball-hawk who relentlessly crashes through the defense, and made off with a string of steals Monday, she tends to be a pass-first player, but her teammates wanted to get her in the scoring column.
Playing to the moment, Leedy banked home a jump shot with 34 ticks on the clock, getting the kind of response from the fans normally reserved for a buzzer-beater.
As Leedy back-pedaled, ready to shred people on defense, her smile matched that of Wright, who ran by pumping her fist.
Prescott finished with 12 to back Wright’s 20, while Abby Mulholland drained three gorgeous jumpers en route to six points of her own.
Izzy Wells (5), Clinkscales (5), Leedy (2), Bailey (2), Katelin Painter (2) and Bella Velasco (2) rounded out the season-best scoring performance.
7th grade:
The opening game was a classic example of an afternoon where Coupeville could have won by 50, if the ball hadn’t kept taking weird spins and popping back out the hoop.
The Wolves were in control from start to finish, opening and closing with 8-0 quarters, and when Blue Heron hit shots, they tended to be of the miracle variety.
CMS opened with four different players popping for buckets in the first quarter, with the highlight being a beautifully-crafted give-and-go play run by Kiara Contreras and Kylie Van Velkinburgh.
Audrianna Shaw, who not once, but three times, blew up defenders, knocking them off their feet, and still got the foul called on her rival each time, closed the first half with a bang.
Taking the ball off the rim, she went coast-to-coast on back-to-back rampages, capping each play with a driving lay-in where she firmly banked the ball home.
Contreras became the go-to player after the break, knocking down a bank shot from the side (virtually identical to a bucket drained moments earlier by teammate Katelin McCormick), before swishing a pair of perfectly-angled free throws off the glass to cap things.
Shaw and Contreras tied for the scoring lead with six apiece, while Ja’Kenya Hoskins (3), Anya Leavell (3), Samantha Streitler (2), McCormick (2) and Adair De Jesus (2) rounded out the attack.
The trio of Leedy, McKenna Somes and Alana Mihill were constantly-buzzing bees on defense, as CMS harassed their visitors from opening tip to final buzzer.
One final note:
While CMS routed its visitors, the two schools showed genuine camaraderie.
In between games, players from both teams moved back and forth in the bleachers, waving their phones at each other and buzzing about matters big and small.
And, as the season closed, a pack of Wolves led by Hoskins descended on the Blue Heron players and started hugging people left and right.
As they did so, one of the Port Townsend girls screamed, “WE LOVE COUPEVILLE!!”
So, we got that going for us, which is nice.
