Risen Johnson scored five of his 16 points in the decisive fourth quarter Wednesday. (John Fisken photos)
Jordan Ford (5), has been a busy bee on the boards all season. Wednesday was no different.
It started as a rout and ended as a thriller.
But it ended as a win, and that was what mattered the most.
Trying to give coach Anthony Smith heart palpitations, the Coupeville High School boys’ basketball squad frittered away a 19-point lead Wednesday, then reached down deep and found a bit of magic in the final moments to pull out a 74-71 win over visiting Orcas Island.
The non-conference win, which lifted the Wolves to 2-3 headed into their first 1A Olympic League game Friday at Klahowya (0-5), left Smith tapping his chest, but wearing a huge smile while doing so.
“It was a battle of wills and our guys really didn’t want to lose,” he said. “That’s what we preach to them in our program — play for each other, trust each other, trust the team, and it was good to see our guys believe in that tonight.”
The game was decided in a pressure-packed final 100 seconds, as both teams swung for the fences, tempers flared and Jordan Ford authored another chapter in his family’s long, impressive CHS athletic legacy.
A technical foul for a flying cuss word gave Orcas a chance to take the lead for the first time in the game with 1:37 to play, but the Vikings could only put in one of two free throws as the Wolf fans hit truly impressive decibel levels.
That knotted the score at 67 — the only tie in the game — but Coupeville responded by attacking, and hard.
Wiley Hesselgrave charged up floor and exploded right up the gut, shredding three defenders for what seemed like it would be a go-ahead layup.
Only problem is, the ball refused to go down, rolling around, then popping back off the rim at the last second.
Enter Ford, son, grandson, nephew and cousin of former Wolf greats, who is getting to play his senior year back in Cow Town after a family move.
Having the game of his life — he finished with a team-high 22, with most of his buckets coming on second-chance balls — Ford out-leaped an Orcas player, snared the rim-out and went right back up for the bucket.
Tack on two free throws from Hesselgrave on Coupeville’s next possession and the Wolves were back up by four, but not out of the woods.
Orcas packaged a pair of superb jumpers around a slashing layup from Wolf guard Risen Johnson to get within a bucket, then had a chance to tie or win on the game’s final possession.
A Viking drove hard to the hoop, but lost the handle on the ball and Ford snatched it away and went down in a crush of players.
As the horn sounded, the Orcas shooter lay face-down on the floor, hitting his hands repeatedly on the hardwood, while the Wolf players started to sprint off to a group celebration.
Only to be stopped by the refs, who put .8 of a second back on the clock and sent Ford to the charity stripe to shoot two for being mauled in the final scrum.
He calmly netted the first, and, while missing the second, sent the ball hard enough off the rim Orcas had no shot at a full-court miracle three-ball to tie.
Cue the second wave of celebration, this one for real.
The cardiac special of a finish capped what for a long time looked like it would be a runaway win.
Coupeville came out running from the opening tip, tossing in shots from every angle, and dropped 27 points in the first eight minutes alone.
Hesselgrave led the way with nine in the opening quarter, including scoring seven in a span of about 15 seconds.
The senior standout drilled a pull-up trey, stole the ball and crashed in for a layup, then banked in a runner off of a pass from Ford.
And, while his run was remarkable, it didn’t even include the best play of the quarter.
That came courtesy Johnson, who, while on a full sprint, launched a shovel pass that covered half the court, then dropped on a dime into the outstretched hands of Ryan Griggs, who banged it home.
Johnson almost pulled off the same brilliant move a second time later in the game, but the ball curled upwards at the last second, instead of downwards, and ricocheted off of the face of the intended target.
That slight miscue was one of the few times the Wolves really made an error.
Even when Orcas got back in the game with a 25-point third quarter, it was because the Vikings raised their level of play, not that Coupeville took a step back.
Ford banged home seven in the third and Griggs roared through the paint for two key early buckets as the Wolves kept the pressure on even as the Vikings suddenly seemed to be hitting everything they put up.
Clinging to a two-point lead entering the fourth, the Wolves found their groove again, using a 9-4 run to stretch the lead back out.
Orcas’ response? A 9-2 surge of their own to set up the frantic final 100 seconds.
Coupeville got its most balanced scoring of the season in the win, with Ford (22), Hesselgrave (20), Johnson (16) and Griggs (12) all breaking into double digits.
Gabe Wynn and DeAndre Mitchell added two apiece, while Desmond Bell and Jared Helmstadter didn’t score, but both provided quality minutes for a Wolf squad that could only go eight deep on the night due to injuries to Hunter Smith and Dante Mitchell.
