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Suns out, (gridiron) guns out

August 18, 2023 by David Svien

Coupeville sophomore Malachi Somes hauls in a pass during the early days of practice. (Nikki Breaux photos)

The work begins.

Coupeville High School football practice kicked off Wednesday, with soccer, cross country, cheer, and volleyball set to launch this coming Monday.

With the sun out (at least for a few days more), the guns were out, as seen in the pics above and below.

Now, just wait until an October game plays out in wet, dense fog, and we’ll see how many Wolves opt to go back to wearing multiple layers.

Posted in Everything changes, Tennis | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

New coach, young roster set to grow together

August 18, 2023 by David Svien

Brynn Parker is back for another season of kicking the crud out of the soccer ball. (Jackie Saia photo)

It’s the start of a new era.

Former Wolf star Kimberly Kisch returns to the soccer pitch of her teen years starting Monday, making her debut as Coupeville High School’s new girls’ soccer coach.

She replaces Kyle Nelson, who retired after countless road trips to faraway destinations on school buses as his players serenaded him with Disney songs.

As Kisch steps into her new job, she’ll have a strong support staff, with Central Whidbey Soccer Club mainstays Darren Stafford and Bill Sites expected to join her.

“As a new coach I have realistic expectations for our first season together and I am unsure what the strength of our players will be,” Kisch said.

“I do, however, have amazing volunteers to help round out my coaching team,” she added.

“I believe that having a strong coaching team will be our biggest strength this season.”

The Wolves lost a chunk of players to graduation, including All-Conference booters Nezi Keiper and Carolyn Lhamon, but do retain their top offensive weapon in Ayden Wyman.

The Wolf junior has already rattled home 13 goals across her first two seasons, putting her in fifth place on the program’s all-time scoring chart.

Even better, Wyman is showing she is ready to step up and provide leadership to her teammates.

“Ayden has really caught my attention,” Kisch said.

“She took the initiative to hold summer practices all on her own! I am impressed by her passion and love of soccer.”

Wolf sharpshooter Ayden Wyman enjoys a sweet reward after terrorizing rival goaltenders. (Morgan White photo)

While Kisch won’t get a true feel for the strengths and weaknesses of her roster until practices begin, her hope is sparked by a potential influx of younger players.

“For promising newcomers, we have a few 8th graders that have shown interest in joining the high school team,” Kisch said.

“Among them is Devon Wyman, Ayden’s younger sister.

“She signed up as soon as I opened the team to 8th graders and has been attending the summer practices her sister has been organizing.”

The Wolves, along with Friday Harbor and La Conner, will likely be chasing defending Northwest 2B/1B League champs Mount Vernon Christian once league play starts.

“They (MVC) have built a solid foundation and have a fantastic program,” Kisch said.

However the roster sets up, the new CHS coach wants her players to hit the pitch with the same intensity she displayed back in the day.

“My goal is to spark excitement in a team that seems to have lost their fire,” Kisch said. “I love soccer and I want my girls to have a passion for it too.

“I also want them to love Coupeville as much as I do and be proud to represent their school.

“I hope that we can grow together as a team and a soccer family.”

Posted in Girls Soccer | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Push hard for the finish line!

August 18, 2023 by David Svien

Jessica Caselden (right), and her fellow daughters of the prairie. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Two weeks from today should be cause for celebration.

The Coupeville High School football team steps onto the gridiron at Mickey Clark Field that night, hosting Klahowya in the first athletic contest of the 2023-2024 school year.

When the Wolves make their debut, the cheers will be even louder if CHS Athletic Trainer Jessica Caselden joins them on the sidelines.

If that happens, it will mean that we, Wolf Nation, rose up as one and righted a potential wrong.

That while we understand budget cuts are part of the new reality for many schools, that cutting the athletic trainer position, especially when it’s filled by a daughter of the prairie, is a step in the wrong direction.

Coupeville administrators decided they couldn’t fund the $8,600 necessary to provide protection for our town’s student/athletes, so we did.

We saved the position for a year and are sending a clear message something has to change before the next budget is crafted.

Having an athletic trainer in place, especially one as talented and committed as Caselden, who returned to The Rock and bought her childhood home, shouldn’t even be a question.

The position is too important to be reduced to a line item on a piece of paper.

It is your sons and daughters’ health and well-being.

It is having a trained pro on scene when the unthinkable happens, it is preventing and lessening injuries, it is a woman inspiring a new generation with her words and actions.

It is everything this school district says it wants in its core principals.

And we’re almost there.

The community has raised $6,420 as of Friday morning, leaving us $2,180 shy of saving the position.

There’s a car wash this Sunday, Aug. 20 from 10-2 at Ebey Academy, which sits on NE Terry, right across from the high school.

Suggested donation is $10, and you are certainly welcome to add tips.

 

Our GoFundMe, which has attracted 65 supporters, can be found here:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/protect-inspire-wolf-athletes

 

You can also contact me at davidsvien@hotmail.com if you would like to donate in some other manner.

 

This is the weekend to make this a reality.

Whether you can donate $5 or $500, every dollar pushes us closer to sending a positive message across the prairie and out into the world.

We are Wolf Nation, hear us roar!

Posted in Fundraisers | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Rising star meets living legend

August 17, 2023 by David Svien

Hammer throw legend Martin Bingisser (left) meets up with Coupeville chucker Logan Martin. (Bob Martin photo)

Call it the Martin and Martin Show.

Coupeville grad Logan Martin, now a track and field star at Central Washington University, recently got a chance to meet and throw with Martin Bingisser, Switzerland’s national hammer throw coach.

A former All-American at the University of Washington, he’s an 11-time national champion in the sport who is also a lawyer and founder of HMMR Media – a leading online resource for throwers.

Bingisser is a busy man but has family in Bellingham and makes the trek from Switzerland every two years.

Enter the ever-resourceful Martin, who used email and Instagram to convince the legendary thrower he should meet up with his #1 fan when in Washington state.

“I was quite the pest, but it paid off!” Martin said with a laugh.

The duo, along with Logan’s dad, Coupeville High School track and field coach Bob Martin, met up at Western Washington University.

“It was very surreal when I was able to shake his hand and hang out with him for the day,” Logan Martin said.

“I see him as a living legend and quite literally everything he said was gold.”

While achieving his own success, Bingisser was coached by Anatoliy Bondarchuk, an Olympic gold medalist in 1972 who has gone on to mentor an incredible string of world record holders.

During his own rise in the sport, adding the hammer throw to the shotput and discus as a high school athlete, Logan Martin has been a relentless worker, both in the practice circle and reading about the sport.

A lot of that research came directly from Bingisser’s writing.

“After digging a little bit, I found that 90% of the hundreds of pages that I’ve printed out and filed, were written by Martin, which was really cool,” Logan Martin said.

During his time at CHS, Dalton’s younger brother played soccer, tennis, basketball, and track, claiming 2nd place at state in all three of his throwing events.

Logan Martin then made the jump to college track and field, earning All-West Region honors in the hammer throw as a CWU freshman this spring.

With his sophomore campaign looming ahead of him, the work continues.

Getting to spend valuable time with one of the best the sport has ever seen is invaluable.

“I was able to take away a whole new perspective on myself as an athlete and my throw,” Logan Martin said.

“And also, two notebook pages that are filled with chicken scratch from that session,” he added with a laugh.

Posted in Track, Wolves in college | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Coaches calmly win, I put the hype in hyperventilate

August 17, 2023 by David Svien

“Hey, none of you tell Brad he’s exactly 900 wins away from passing Ed Pepple as the state’s winningest high school boys’ basketball coach!!” (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

I probably care a lot more about the hype than they do.

Coupeville High School’s current coaches, while very competitive and always striving for wins on the playing field, don’t include any divas.

No matter the sport, they are focused on team success over personal accolades, and don’t seem to spend a lot of time tracking personal win/loss records or worrying about where they stand on the all-time ladder.

So, that’s where I come in.

With a lot of extra time on my hands, and an abiding interest in tracking stats of all kinds, I crunch the numbers — even if sometimes it’s just for my own entertainment.

As we head into the 2023-2024 school year, there are 11 active head coaches at CHS, with seven of them having recorded wins.

First-year girls’ soccer guru Kimberly Kisch is set to make her debut in the season opener, while Elizabeth Bitting (cross country/track), Jennifer Morrell (cheer), and Bob Martin (track) run programs which don’t collect conventional wins and losses.

At some point, we’ll pick up a 12th coach, once a replacement for Ken Stange is announced.

He retired this spring after two decades in charge of the Wolf tennis programs, leaving Coupeville AD Willie Smith with big shoes to fill.

So, as we head into 23-24, where do we stand? Whether you asked, or not, here we are:

 

Wins at CHS for active varsity head coaches:

Kevin McGranahan (Softball) — 97
Cory Whitmore (Volleyball) — 76
Brad Sherman (Boys Basketball) — 53
Megan Richter (Girls Basketball) — 19
Steve Hilborn (Baseball) — 17
Robert Wood (Boys Soccer) — 10
Bennett Richter (Football) — 7

 

In a side note, Richter (.777) edges Hilborn (.739) for best winning percentage, though, to be fair, each coach only has one season at the helm.

McGranahan, who has won at a .688 clip, enters his ninth season this spring — counting the Covid campaign of 2020.

The diamond kingpin tops all active Wolf coaches with 141 games, while Whitmore (112 games/.679 winning percentage) and Sherman (110 games) are the only other CHS leaders to crack triple digits.

Posted in coach chatter | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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