Hope Lodell had eight services aces to pace Coupeville to a straight-sets win Tuesday. (John Fisken photo)
Opening night was a rousing success.
Using strong serving and timely hitting, the Coupeville High School volleyball squad gave first-year coach Cory Whitmore a straight-sets win in his debut Tuesday, stomping visiting Mount Vernon Christian 25-15, 25-11, 25-21.
The non-conference win, coming against a school that finished 4th at the 1B state tourney last season, was a crowd-pleaser from start to finish.
Coupeville used long, successful runs at the service stripe from multiple players to control the match.
“That was our game plan, to take command in the first set and ramp up the pressure,” Whitmore said. “The team we have here trusts in the system and trusts me to do my best to put them in position to do well.”
Wolf junior Katrina McGranahan kicked things off early in the first set.
Stepping to the line with her squad trailing 4-2, she calmly ripped off winners on seven straight serves, with most of the action coming courtesy her own laser-powered arm.
McGranahan nailed one ace that curved in and bit a chunk of paint off the back-line at the last second.
A moment later she drilled another that left a scorch mark on the net as it crawled over (at a blistering speed), then exploded at the feet of a would-be returner.
A couple of big plays from Emma Smith — a block in which she soared to the ceiling and a knee-buckling spike — kept the Wolves close, before Valen Trujillo ended the first set on an emphatic note.
The senior captain, mixing speeds and getting crafty, took a 16-15 lead and ran off nine straight points on her serve to turn a taut battle into a runaway rout.
“It’s so tough to read her serves,” said a smiling Whitmore.
The final two sets were much the same, with Hope Lodell, Payton Aparicio and Lauren Rose joining McGranahan and Trujillo with strong runs at the service stripe.
Smith was a deadly sniper with her spikes, while Mikayla Elfrank and Tiffany Briscoe both made a bid to craft the night’s best play.
Elfrank, a junior making her CHS volleyball debut, displayed serious pop and a nice touch frequently flying in from the outside.
She had a gym-rattling spike winner late in the second set, then topped that right near the end of the match.
Mount Vernon had rallied for three straight points late in the third set, cutting the margin to 23-20 and raising hopes they could steal a set and prolong the match.
Instead, Elfrank, coming in from the left side, unloaded a spectacular cross-court laser that angled through two jumping Hurricane players and kicked off the line on the far right side of the floor.
The ball struck, there was a momentary pause as everyone strained to see if it had caught the line, then the Wolf faithful exploded as the ref signaled that yes, Elfrank was just that good.
Briscoe’s moment came at the end of one of the game’s longer rallies.
After both teams came up with big saves to keep the action hopping, Briscoe pounced on a wayward ball, and, using just her fingertips, redirected it through a maze of MVC defenders, dropping it into the one small gap available for a winner.
Whitmore, who was making his regular-season debut as a varsity coach (Coupeville had a jamboree under its belt), basked in the glow afterwards, as fans and CHS Athletic Director Willie Smith showered him with congratulations.
“Retire now and you go down with the best winning percentage in school history,” Smith joked.
Lodell and Trujillo paced the Wolves with eight service aces apiece, while Aparicio (5), McGranahan (5) and Ashley Menges (4) all chipped in.
Menges dished out a team-high 12 assists, while Rose collected seven.
Coupeville heads to Langley Saturday for the six-team South Whidbey Invite, then hosts Chimacum Sept. 13 in its 1A Olympic League opener.
