Coupeville Sports

Makana’s Scottish adventure ends with a win

January 29, 2022 by David Svien

Coupeville’s Makana Stone (left) works on her game during practice in England. (Photo property Leicester Riders)

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Putting six different players into double-digit scoring Saturday, including Coupeville’s Makana Stone, the Leicester Riders stormed to a big victory in Scotland.

Roaring from behind to finish the game on a 25-6 tear, the Riders routed the Caledonia Pride 77-62 in Women’s British Basketball League action.

With the victory, Leicester improves to 8-4 in league action, 11-5 overall.

Stone and Co. sit comfortably in fourth place in the 13-team WBBL.

The game was a tense affair most of the way, with the score knotted at 16-16 at the first break.

From there Caledonia surged ahead 38-33 by halftime, before carrying a 56-52 lead into the final frame.

Leicester had all the answers, however, throwing down 13 straight points en route to turning the fourth quarter into a romp.

Oceana Hamilton paced the Riders with a team-high 17, while Alison Lewis, making her debut after transferring in from Luxembourg earlier in the week, banked home 15.

Anna Lappenkuper (12), Hannah Robb (12), Stone (11), and Brooklyn Mcalear (10) also scored as Leicester shared the ball all day.

Posted in Basketball | Tagged Basketball, CHS Wolves, Leicester Riders, Makana Stone, Women's British Basketball League | Leave a Comment »

I’m stuck in the past, and staying there

January 28, 2022 by David Svien

My past, and present.

With one exception, every movie I’ve seen in 2022 originally debuted in 1997.

It’s part of my New Year’s resolution, which was to build a virtual time machine and travel back to my lazy, hazy days behind the counter at Videoville.

I ate a kajillion Reese’s Pieces, was rightly described by my boss more than once as a “gossipy old church lady,” and injected cinema into my veins at a staggering rate between 1994 and 2006.

Even got paid more than a few bucks to do so.

Life hasn’t been the same since, as future jobs in the dish pits and out on farms beat the crud out of my back — something later made worse by lounging on too many butt-eroding bleachers while writing about prep sports.

If one thing has remained constant over the years, it has been my habit of mainlining movies into my cranium.

Let’s just say I’ve seen a lot of good to great films, and a LOT of bad to worse ones.

And yet I endure.

How I watch them has changed over the years, with video stores sidelined, streaming systems taking over the world, and the act of going to the theater having irreversibly changed.

Not just by Covid, though, as ever-present cell phones, in all their annoying glory, ruined the live cinematic experience long before anyone worried about being coughed on in the dark.

Why should I go out of my way to arrange a six-movies-in-a-day marathon at the nearest mall — complete with squares of light popping on and off around me — when I can spend the same day buried under blankies on my recliner?

Especially now that I’ve chosen to spend a chunk of 2022 living in 1997.

So now I’m 38 flicks — 34 features and four short films — down the movie memory hole, and a few things already stick out.

Batman and Robin is not only still the worst superhero film ever made, but it’s somehow gotten worse in the 25 years since I ruined a Friday afternoon watching it in a theater on opening day.

The only good thing to come out of it is that George Clooney has been so willing to ridicule the film (and his own performance) every day since.

Meanwhile, Speed 2, thoroughly lambasted at the time for not being a carbon copy of the awesome first film in the series, is NOT as bad as you think it was.

Sandra Bullock is both adorable and a butt-kickin’ heroine, Willem Dafoe is reliably bonkers playing with his leeches, and the cruise ship crashing through town like Godzilla is still a hoot.

Also, it’s interesting what the passage of time will do.

I loved The Spanish Prisoner the first time around, and loved it this time too, having forgotten all the intricate surprises waiting to be sprung.

With other revisited thrillers like Switchback, Cop Land, Scream 2, and Jackie Brown, the twists were still lodged in my brain, but other than the basic outline of David Mamet’s con man caper, the rest had filtered away.

Then there’s Hercules, which I saw 17,808 times in the first few years after it hit home video, thanks to my oldest nephew — who was very young at the time.

Eventually, he moved on to new things, and there was a big enough time gap before nephews #2 and #3 arrived, that they never got hooked on the film.

Coming back after all these years, I found Hercules — with its hero channeling the nerdy charm (and vocal stylings) of Christopher Reeve in Superman — to be one of the best of the new-era Disney animated films.

Not to the level of Aladdin, certainly, but personally I prefer it to The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast.

Yes, yes, I’m a blasphemer.

Meanwhile, I Married A Strange Person, with its super-horny animated birds, is still a hoot — if you’re not watching it with other people. Then it gets awkward fast…

Snow White: A Tale of Terror with Sigourney Weaver is an underrated story perfect for those of us who wanted to see Prince Charming get thrown out an upstairs window, while Princess Mononoke remains a pristine gem.

And Jurnee Smollett, at 11 years old, knocked it out of the park in Eve’s Bayou, which, like other hidden gems such as Traveller, never had a chance come Oscar time. Which is a pity.

What’s still ahead to revisit? A lot.

All-timers like L.A. Confidential, The Sweet Hereafter, and Boogie Nights, plus more middling fare such as Anaconda, Good Burger, and Leprechaun 4: In Space.

The good. The godawful.

The ones I remember. The ones I don’t.

Even a few which, horror of horrors, I somehow never saw the first time around.

I’m stuck in 1997, and I’m not coming back anytime soon.

To follow my journey, pop over to:

https://letterboxd.com/davidsvien/list/we-have-to-go-back-rewatching-1997-in-2022/

Posted in Movie Mania | Tagged 1997, Eve's Bayou, Jurnee Smollett, movie mania, Reese's Pieces, Ulee's Gold | Leave a Comment »

Bend? Break? Just win, baby!

January 27, 2022 by David Svien

Caleb Meyer and Coupeville won their 12th straight game Thursday, matching the best start in program history. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Two milestones reached, several more to go.

With a 57-47 win at Mount Vernon Christian Thursday, the Coupeville High School varsity boys basketball squad equals the best start in program history, while clinching at least a tie for its first league title in two decades.

The Wolves, now a pristine 9-0 in Northwest 2B/1B League play, 12-0 overall, have matched the starts of the 1969-1970 and 1996-1997 teams.

With three regular season games left on the schedule, including NWL showdowns with Friday Harbor and La Conner, the CHS boys will add their first new plaque to the school’s Wall of Fame since current coach Brad Sherman was a player.

Coupeville can finish no worse than 9-2 in league play, while MVC, at 6-2 with three conference clashes left, can finish no better than 9-2.

If that happens, the schools will technically share the title, though the Wolves swept the season series against the Hurricanes, giving them an edge which can’t be denied.

One more Wolf win in league play, or one more MVC loss, however, and Coupeville sits alone atop the NWL.

The last time a Coupeville boys basketball squad claimed a league title was the 2001-2002 season, when Sherman was a junior sharpshooter rattling the rims for 275 points and Randy King was Wolf coach.

Chris Good led that team in scoring, followed by Sherman, Geoff Hageman, Sean Callahan, Casey Clark, James Meek, Brian Roundy, Dustin Vanvelkinburgh, Brian Fakkema, Rob Fasolo, and Joe Kelley.

20 years after playing on the last Wolf boys hoops team to win a league title, Brad Sherman has led this year’s team to the first level of the promised land. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

This year’s Wolf squad, which travels to Granite Falls Saturday for a non-conference rumble and a crack at the first 13-0 mark in 105 seasons, faced down one of its toughest tests Thursday night.

The game was a one-point affair with six minutes to play, but the Wolves refused to bend or crack.

Having frittered away a 14-point second quarter lead, Coupeville saw MVC tie the game up twice in the second half, but never trailed against the Hurricanes after Logan Downes slapped a rebound home to stake his squad to an early 8-7 lead.

Clinging to a 43-42 advantage with the clock headed under six to play, the Wolves stiffened on defense and swarmed to the ball.

Forcing bad passes, hitting the boards with intensity, and plucking the ball away from the Hurricane ballhandlers, CHS closed the game on a 14-5 run which drove a stake through the heart of every MVC fan in attendance.

We dine on your private school tears, and it is sweet. So sweet.

The Wolves did it from distance, with Downes and Xavier Murdy draining three-balls, with the former making the net jump off a pinpoint pass from Hawthorne Wolfe, and the latter hitting a step-back trey.

And Coupeville’s players did it at the free throw line, hitting six of eight freebies in the waning moments after getting hacked and molested on their way to the hoop.

Caleb Meyer put the cherries on top of the sundae, swishing four consecutive free throws to end things, while Grady Rickner and Downes also tickled the twines for a crucial point.

Toss in Wolfe rippling the nets for a foul shot early in the quarter — netting the 750th point of his prep career — and CHS dominated at the line.

Coupeville hit 12 of 18, while MVC was a modest 3-7.

Coupeville Middle School stars made the trek to Mount Vernon to support their high school counterparts. (Riley White photo)

The game tipped off with Xavier Murdy and Meyer in fine form, as the senior duo combined for 19 points as CHS built a 21-12 lead by the first break.

Meyer knocked down back-to-back treys, with one set up by a Wolfe steal, and things were headed in a positive direction.

Barely a minute into the second quarter, after X-Man converted off of an offensive rebound and Downes drilled the bottom out of the net on a three-ball, the romp was on at 26-12.

But then the romp was back off, at least for a bit.

Coupeville hit a dry spell, MVC went on a run, and then the Hurricanes got lucky to tighten things up considerably.

A 10-0 Hurricanes surge cut the lead, while a three-ball which beat the shot clock and halftime buzzer by about .00002 of a second pulled the host team all the way back to within 31-29.

The lid on the bucket refused to budge for the Wolves during much of the third quarter, but Coupeville’s ramped-up defense kept them in front.

A three-point play the hard way from Meyer cracked a 31-31 tie, while Downes put a rebound back up and in to push the lead to 39-35 heading into the final frame.

That set up a rough-and-tumble fourth quarter, with the game tied at 40-40, then CHS up 43-42 when it made its heroic stand.

By getting the final margin out to 10, the Wolves won by double digits for the 11th time in 12 games this season.

The only team to lose by single digits was 3A Oak Harbor in the season opener, when lil’ 2B Coupeville made a major statement (and harvested many a sweet, sweet tear) with a 70-64 win.

Sherman used seven players in the title clincher, with six scoring.

Xavier Murdy led the way with 23 points, while Meyer banked in 18 and Downes rattled the rims for 12.

Alex Murdy (2), Wolfe (1), and Rickner (1) rounded out the scoring, with Logan Martin a terror on the boards.

“Un-de-feated!!” (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

What’s ahead:

Saturday’s non-conference game pits CHS against a 2-8 Granite Falls team, then the Wolves close the regular season with road tilts against NWL foes Friday Harbor (Feb. 4) and La Conner (Feb. 10).

Those games are important, as the three 2B schools in the conference are fighting for two playoff berths — with those slots decided not by the team’s overall record, but their mark against each other.

The league’s four 1B schools — MVC, Darrington, Concrete, and Orcas Island — go their own way in the postseason.

Coupeville is 2-0 in the four-game 2B mini-rumble, having beaten La Conner and Friday Harbor the first time around, with La Conner at 1-1 and Friday Harbor at 0-2.

Districts are Feb. 15-17, with CHS hosting.

The second-ranked 2B team from the NWL plays Auburn Adventist in a loser-out game, with the winner advancing to play the #1 seed.

Both teams in the district championship game earn a trip to state, which would be the first for the Coupeville boys since 1988.

Posted in Boys Basketball | Tagged Boys Basketball, CHS Wolves, league title, Mount Vernon Christian, Northwest League | Leave a Comment »

Hurricanes swamp Wolf JV

January 27, 2022 by David Svien

Zane Oldenstadt pops a shot. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

The Wolf JV gets back at it this weekend.

Not every night goes your way.

Frustrated by an unforgiving rim Thursday the Coupeville High School JV boys basketball squad fell 50-23 at Mount Vernon Christian.

The loss drops the young Wolves to 1-4 in Northwest 2B/1B League play, 2-6 overall.

There are three games left on the schedule, however, with all of them on the road, giving Hunter Smith’s squad a chance to bounce back and exit on a high note.

Thursday night the Wolves found themselves in a hole early, and were never able to dig all the way back out.

Trailing 13-6 at the first break, Coupeville slipped behind 24-12 by halftime and 41-15 heading into the final frame.

Once there, the Wolves put together their best charge, playing MVC virtually straight up with four players rattling home points.

Freshman Hunter Bronec paced Coupeville, rippling the nets on a trio of three-balls en route to a team-high 10 points.

Zane Oldenstadt (5), Nick Guay (4), Landon Roberts (2), and Jack Porter (2) joined him in the scoring column, with Guay also hitting a trey.

Hurlee Bronec, Mikey Robinett, Ryan Blouin, William Davidson, and Quinten-Simpson Pilgrim all saw floor time as well.

Coupeville returns to action this Saturday with a non-conference rumble at Granite Falls.

Posted in Boys Basketball | Tagged Boys Basketball, CHS Wolves, Hunter Bronec, JV, Mount Vernon Christian | Leave a Comment »