Wolf sophomore Hunter Smith slices to the hoop for two of his team-high 14 Thursday in a home playoff loss. (John Fisken photo)
It wasn’t for lack of effort.
The Coupeville High School boys’ basketball squad hit the floor Thursday with intensity ramped up to the roof, matched visiting Bellevue Christian bucket for bucket for a half, then got picked apart by a precision-passing, precision-shooting squad.
What was a 27-27 battle royal at the half ended with the Vikings running away with a 64-45 playoff win.
Bellevue Christian, now 9-10 on the year, advances on in the district tourney to play at Cascade Christian Saturday, while the Wolves (9-11) see their season end.
The game was the final one in the red and white for eight Coupeville seniors.
The longest-tenured of those guys, Wiley Hesselgrave, who has played varsity ball all four seasons, opened the scoring for the Wolves, slashing to the hoop for a layup to tie the game at 2-2 in the early seconds of action.
After a Bellevue three-ball on which the net never moved — a theme that recurred far too often as the Vikings were dead-eye shooters all night — Coupeville put together its best run of the night.
Kicked off by a crowd-pleasing block from Hesselgrave, who caught a Viking from behind on a breakaway and snuffed out his shot at the last second, the Wolves ripped off a 13-4 surge.
It started with Risen Johnson twirling, ballet-style, through the air, shedding defenders as he dropped a runner off the glass, and ended with Hesselgrave nailing a pull-up trey from the top.
Four Wolves scorched the nets during the run, with Dante Mitchell and Hunter Smith joining Johnson and Hesselgrave, and Coupeville looked loose, confident and ready to run away with the game.
But then, just as quickly, the switch got flipped the other way, as Bellevue scored the final five points of the first and 10 of the first 12 in the second to reclaim the lead at 24-17.
With his team starting to buckle around him, Smith, the super sophomore who will be one of only two varsity players eligible to return next year (along with junior Gabe Wynn), decided to take matters into his own hands.
Four straight trips down the floor the serene, smooth floor commander took control, putting the Vikings on their heels, then knocking down shots over their heads as they fell back.
A fall-back jumper, a coast-to-coast romp off of a rebound, a pull-up jumper and then a running layup, on a play in which Hesselgrave poked the ball free, knocked it to Johnson, then watched as Risen launched a half-court heave that dropped onto Smith’s fingertips as he zipped to the basket.
At this point, the two teams, who had played a very-close 53-50 game early in the season (Coupeville won that non-conference tilt), were like boxers, bobbing and weaving, punching and counter-punching.
And they kept it up right to the halftime buzzer, with Bellevue knocking down another three-ball in which the net barely rippled, followed by Coupeville’s JJ Johnson popping in a little jumper to knot things at 27.
With the crowd abuzz, the game had the look of a classic in the making.
Unfortunately, that ended about 45 seconds into the third quarter.
Coupeville struck first, with Hesselgrave sweeping under the hoop and laying it up and in to draw first blood.
Though no one knew it at the time, it would be the final points the Wolf star would score as a prep baller.
When things turned, they did so quickly.
It started with a free throw, then back-to-back buckets off of rebounds, another free throw, a steal and a breakaway bucket, then three straight shots on which Bellevue’s six-foot-six Joe Lampkin shot from about two inches from the basket.
By the time JJ Johnson stopped the bleeding with a pair of free throws, Bellevue had run off 14 consecutive points and desperation was setting in.
Things didn’t get much better as Bellevue capped the third with another bank shot from Lampkin, who led all scorers with 26, then immediately opened the fourth with another flawless trey from the corner.
The Vikings stretched the lead out to 15, Coupeville chipped away a bit, then Bellevue put the hammer down with another 12-0 surge to stake themselves to their biggest lead of the night at 64-41.
With the game lost, the Wolves took a look at the future, giving junior Brian Shank and freshman Ty Eck their varsity debuts in the fourth quarter.
Shank and senior Jared Helmstadter, two hard workers whose motors never stop humming, combined on the season’s final bucket, with the older player knocking down a jumper off of a pass from his successor.
While the end result wasn’t what he wanted to see, Coupeville coach Anthony Smith walked away from the final game of his fifth season head held high.
“I’m very disappointed for my seniors, they’ve put in a lot of hard work in practice, at open gyms, and we just came up short,” he said. “It’s been my pleasure to coach them.
“I have nothing but respect for these guys,” Anthony Smith added. “They’ve become an extended family and have always had each others backs all the way.”
Hunter Smith tallied 14 to pace the Wolves, while Hesselgrave knocked down nine to claim the team’s season scoring title.
“Gonna miss Wiley,” Anthony Smith said. “Every practice, every road trip, every game, I knew I could count on that guy.”
JJ Johnson rattled the rims for eight, Wynn and Risen Johnson netted four apiece and Helmstadter, Jordan Ford and Dante Mitchell all dropped in a bucket.
DeAndre Mitchell and Desmond Bell joined the pack of seniors playing their final game.
As he watched the players exit, Anthony Smith looked down for a moment, then looked back up, determination glinting in his eye.
“We start a new season tomorrow! See who wants to put the work in. It’ll be up to them and what they want to do, but we’ll be back.”
