If Stevens Middle School can’t play by the same rules as Coupeville, CMS should reject them the same way Morgan Pease did to this shot earlier in the season. (John Fisken photo)
Bush league.
That’s what the stunt pulled Thursday by Stevens Middle School’s girls’ basketball coach was. Pure and simple.
And it’s one more reason on top of an ever-growing pile of reasons why many question CMS playing the huge, 600-student school from Port Angeles in the first place.
Especially when there are three other middle schools on Whidbey Island (Oak Harbor, North Whidbey and Langley) that CMS doesn’t currently play, that would seem to make so much more sense, and offer so many less headaches.
Instead, Coupeville, which feeds one of the smallest 1A high schools in the state, travels to the far reaches of Forks and faces Stevens and Sequim, schools which feed 2A high schools.
That puts the younger Wolves at a huge disadvantage in number of athletes available (most notably in football) and travel.
The second point was what drove Thursday’s debacle.
When CMS travels, they don’t get back until after 9 PM almost without fail.
Stevens, though, or at least their ponytail-sporting coach, started insisting from the moment he walked in the door that his teams had to leave in plenty of time to catch the 6 PM ferry.
Or else THEY WOULD DIE!!!!!!!
Cause heaven forbid they catch either of the other two ferries scheduled for Thursday night.
With the two schools having zoomed through 7th and 8th grade varsity games, the last game of the afternoon was a JV contest that, unlike the first two games, was a close, hard-fought affair.
With the score knotted at 14 at the half, Stevens insisted on having the halftime break erased — but only after letting Coupeville leave the floor and retire to the locker room.
A hasty agreement to use a running clock (only stopping for free throws and timeouts) was set in motion, Stevens dropped in a bucket and Coupeville responded with a free throw from Seraina Weatherford.
Down 16-15, the Wolves recovered the ball and coach Bob Martin called timeout to set up a play, with 3:55 still left on the running clock.
It was then that Captain Ponytail came out of the stands and pulled his players off the floor, insisting they had to leave by 5:10 PM promptly.
To catch a 6 PM ferry, that sat 7 miles away.
On a Thursday, with no traffic and a ferry reservation in hand, he kept on insisting his team needed 50 minutes to go from the school to the Coupeville Terminal.
I have an eight letter word for you and the first six letters are B-U-L-L-S-H.
I’m sure you get IT, without me giving you the IT.
Through football and volleyball and now two basketball seasons, other schools pulling crud like this has been a recurring theme for CMS coaches this school year.
If this was the first snafu, it would be unfortunate. That it is about the 30th snafu is deplorable.
If Stevens, Forks and Sequim don’t want to make the same concessions Coupeville is forced to make, if Port Townsend can get away with refusing to reschedule a game they postponed, CMS administrators need to take a good, hard look at things.
Either insist the other schools play by the same rules they ask the Wolves to, or find new opponents.
Cause Stevens disappearing act was not fair, in any way, to the Wolf players, their coaches or their fans.
But what about the scores, you ask?
We’re not going to dignify Stevens by reporting them (they won both varsity games and stole the JV game), but I will run down who scored for the Wolves.
7th grade varsity: Chelsea Prescott led the way with seven, while Mollie Bailey (4), Genna Wright (3) and Morgan Pease (1) all chipped in.
8th grade varsity: Hannah Davidson was high scorer, with nine, while Avalon Renninger banged away for eight. Emma Mathusek knocked down three and Tia Wurzrainer added a bucket.
JV: Cassidy Moody taped up injured fingers on her shooting hand while warming up, then drained a game-high eight. Wurzrainer banked home four and Weatherford tickled the twines for three.
