Tenley Stuurmans hits nothing but net. (Julie Wheat photo)
I see your surge, and raise you.
The Coupeville High School varsity girls’ basketball team busted out a 10-0 run at one point Tuesday night against visiting East Jefferson.
Unfortunately for the Wolves, the Rivals, who feature a mashup of players from Chimacum and Port Townsend, went on their own 21-2 and 14-2 tears en route to a 59-42 victory.
The non-conference loss drops Coupeville to 1-2, with CHS set to head to Orcas Island Friday for its first road trip, and first Northwest 2B/1B League game of the season.
Playing a third-straight home game Tuesday, the Wolves fell behind 6-0 in the game’s first minute, before finding their best groove of the evening.
Tenley Stuurmans nailed a silky pullup jumper over the outstretched arms of a defender to kick off the aforementioned 10-0 surge, and she and her teammates were off and running.
Teagan Calkins and Haylee Armstrong added buckets during the seemingly game-busting run, with Stuurmans swooping in to deliver multiple crowd-pleasing baskets, and the Rivals were stuck in reverse.
It wouldn’t last, however.
With Coupeville eventually ahead 12-8, East Jefferson went to a full-court press, and it worked wonders.
Throwing off the Wolf ballhandlers and creating a series of rapid-fire steals, it allowed the visitors to retake the lead at 14-12 heading into the first break.
After freshman Kennedy O’Neill banked in a bucket to open the second frame and knot things back up, East Jefferson’s defense got especially brutal, keying a 15-0 run from which Coupeville never fully recovered.
The Wolves, down 33-18 at the half, played the Rivals almost bucket-for-bucket after the break, but could never quite get back over the hump.
CHS cut the deficit down to seven several times in the third, with Calkins and Danica Strong popping three-balls and Armstrong soundly rejecting an East Jefferson shot, but that was as close as Scout Smith’s squad would get.
Another 10-0 explosion from the Rivals in the fourth stretched the margin back out to 19, and the rally died for good.
Penina Vailolo, a senior from Chimacum, was the prime-time killer, knifing Coupeville for a game-high 26 points, while Stuurmans led the Wolves with 15.
Calkins, O’Neill, and Strong each added seven points, while Armstrong hit for six and moved into the top 100 scorers all-time for CHS girls’ basketball, which launched its program in 1974.
Now with 122 career varsity points and counting, the Wolf junior sits at #98 all-time, while Calkins, a senior who has torched the nets for 265 varsity points, moved from #45 to #42, passing Sarah Mouw (259), Carly Guillory (260), and Madeline Strasburg (261).
Ari Cunningham and Lexis Drake rounded out the rotation Tuesday, both bringing heat on the defensive end of the floor.
Coupeville Sports 