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Cael Wilson and Coupeville toppled Grace Academy Friday night in a game decided by penalty kicks. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

Cameron Epp and Co. are 2-4 and headed home for three-straight games.

“The soccer gods were on our side today.”

Coupeville High School boys soccer coach Robert Wood and his team exited Marysville with a hard-fought win Friday night, thanks to some skill and some luck.

The Wolves bounced host Grace Academy 3-2, with the game decided by a penalty kick shootout after two scoreless overtimes.

That finale went down 5-3 in favor of Coupeville, and lifts it to 2-4 in Northwest 2B/1B League play, with both victories coming against the same opponent.

“Strong second half with a good result,” Wood said. “Ending with PK’s is probably the most unfair method known to mankind … but a win is a win, even when the other team outplayed us most of the night.”

Closing out a three-game road trip, the Wolves went to extra time for the second-straight game. Coming off of a loss to La Conner, this ending was much more preferable.

Alex Murdy got CHS on the board with his first high school goal, coming on an “aggressive takeaway and good couple moves to get a power knuckleball shot over the keeper, under the bar.”

Coupeville’s second score came courtesy Nick Guay, who tallied his team-leading third goal of the campaign.

“An aggressive attack on a free ball … cheeky little chip over the keeper rushing the ball and into the goal,” is how his coach fondly remembered it.

Grace forced overtime by scoring in stoppage time, then the two teams failed to score in either of the two five-minute extra periods.

While the Wolves played stellar ball at times, they also benefited from Grace hitting the goal post four times.

Coupeville now returns home for three straight games, starting with a rematch with La Conner next Tuesday, Oct. 5.

The Wolves then host Mount Vernon Christian Oct. 7 and Providence Classical Christian Oct. 9.

Ready and rarin’ to run in the rain. (Elizabeth Bitting photos)

“Bring on the liquid sunshine!”

Rain and mud never stopped a Wolf.

Attacking a soaking-wet course which came complete with “two-inch deep puddles” and “one big, muddy, slippery hill,” the Coupeville Middle School cross country team shined brightly in the gloom Thursday afternoon.

The Wolves were competing at a multi-team event in Granite Falls which attracted 118 runners and probably needed a different name this time around.

“Granite Gallop? You mean Granite Galoshing!,” CMS coach Elizabeth Bitting said with a laugh.

“Historically this is our wettest and flattest course of the season! As soon as we arrived the rain began! As soon as the last race finished the rain stopped and rainbows started appearing.

“It was a fun, muddy mess of a run, and all had a great time.”

Despite being soaked, many of the Wolf runners set PR’s, and the girls team finished second in the team race out of six squads, trailing just powerhouse King’s.

Coupeville also made a very positive impression on rival coaches.

“There were athletes smiling as they ran through the puddles,” Bitting said. “A coach from another school even commented to me, ‘Your team ran so well today, coach! Their smiles when you cheer for them is everything!!’

“Compliments like that make a coach proud.”

 

Complete Thursday results (1.7 miles):

 

GIRLS:

Noelle Western (7th) 12:51 *PR*
Ivy Rudat (14th) 14:30
Aleksia Jump (16th) 14:32
Mikayla Wagner (19th) 14:46
Laken Simpson (20th) 14:50 *PR*
Marin Winger (25th) 15:56
Emma McFadden (33rd) 17:50 *PR*
Devon Wyman (35th) 17:57
Mary Western (42nd) 19:58 *PR*

 

BOYS:

Easton Green (13th) 11:39 *PR*
Beckett Green (19th) 12:27
Wyatt Fitch-Marron (23rd) 13:01
Axel Marshall (35th) 14:01
Zack Blitch (52nd) 16:52 *PR*

Natalie Perera leads off a collection of CMS volleyball portraits. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

Let the spikes (and the photos) fly.

As a new season of Coupeville Middle School volleyball gets underway, photographer John Fisken delivers a selection of portraits featuring Wolf players and coaches.

Ava Carpenter

Isabella de Souza Oliveira

Coach Katie Kiel

Abbigail Bond

Carly Burt

Adeline Maynes

Coach Cris Matochi

Cory Whitmore is working on a sixth-straight winning season as CHS volleyball coach. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

Wolf softball guru Kevin McGranahan, coming off a 12-0 season, has led the diamond program to four-straight winning campaigns.

It’s a two-man battle, with a third lurking.

When you look at Coupeville High School’s sports programs, volleyball and softball have had the most sustained success over the past half-decade plus.

The Wolf spikers, currently sitting at 5-2, are playing for a sixth-straight winning season, all under coach Cory Whitmore.

CHS is 5-0 in Northwest 2B/1B league play this year, and has eight matches, seven against conference foes, remaining on the schedule.

Meanwhile, the softballers, playing for Kevin McGranahan, have put together four consecutive campaigns which ended with more wins than losses.

The only other Coupeville coach with an active streak of back-to-back winning seasons is football guru Marcus Carr.

His gridiron teams have finished 3-2 and 5-4 the past two campaigns, and are 1-2 this time around, with five games left to play on the regular-season schedule.

Boys basketball (Brad Sherman), girls tennis (Ken Stange), and baseball (Will Thayer) each have a current one-year streak of winning seasons.

Whitmore and McGranahan both were hired in 2016, both taking over programs which had a losing record the season before.

Since then, they’ve each won 60 games and taken a team to state, though their paths slightly diverge.

Whitmore is the only current CHS coach in any sport with more than one season under their belt to never post a losing record.

Meanwhile McGranahan’s softball squad went 12-0 this spring, believed to be the best finish by any Wolf team in school history, in any sport.

Unfortunately, Covid restrictions scrapped any form of playoffs for the diamond queens.

Which is still better than 2020, when the pandemic erased the whole season for spring teams.

How the coaches with the longest active-winning streaks at CHS match-up through Oct. 1, 2021, with Whitmore set to move ahead with a win next Tuesday at home against Concrete.

 

Cory Whitmore:

2016: 11-6
2017: 13-5 (State)
2018: 11-5
2019: 14-5
2020: 6-3 (Partial season – Covid)
2021: 5-2 (Active)

Total: 60-26

 

Kevin McGranahan:

2016: 9-11
2017: 12-9
2018: 12-9
2019: 15-10 (State)
2020: No season – Covid
2021: 12-0 (Partial season – Covid)

Total: 60-39

Thomas Strelow flies by. (Morgan White photos)

Coupeville’s girls cross country squad joined the boys in winning a team title Thursday afternoon.

All the way back.

The reborn Coupeville High School cross country program, now in its fourth season of full-time running after a 20-year-plus shutdown, reached the top of a major hill Thursday afternoon.

Running in Mount Vernon, the Wolves captured team wins in both the girls and boys races, though the second one is the shocker.

Coupeville, with a season-high seven girls running, was the only one of three schools to have enough athletes to form a full team, guaranteeing that victory.

On the boys side of things, Concrete and Lummi had a handful of runners, but the team race was a showdown between the Wolves and host Mount Vernon Christian.

As in the program which is the absolute gold standard for Northwest 2B/1B boys cross country.

The big dog. The alpha warriors. The kings.

Consider the throne toppled, at least for a day.

Twice Coupeville’s male harriers came for MVC this season, only for the Hurricanes to pull out the team win.

The first time it was 25-36 for Mount Vernon Christian (low score wins), the second time 23-32.

Third time was the charm, as the Wolves put five runners in the top eight Thursday, nailing down a 27-29 win with major implications moving forward.

The league championship meet is three weeks from today, on Coupeville’s home course at Fort Casey State Park.

Intrigue, and not just fog, swirls in the air.

But for now, in the moment, the celebration echoes far and wide across Wolf Nation.

Coupeville Middle School cross country coach Elizabeth Bitting filled in as the high school coach last season, then returned to her dream job when Paige Spangler was hired by CHS.

Thursday, Bitting’s CMS runners did really well in Granite Falls, but part of her heart will always be with the older runners, and she let the exclamations fly.

“So excited for them!!!!!! Way to go WOLVES!!! You’ve worked so hard for this!!!!!!!”

 

Complete Thursday results (5,000 meters):

 

GIRLS:

Helen Strelow (2nd) 25:57.6
Claire Mayne (3rd) 26:29.9
Svetlana Vanina (4th) 26:44.1 *PR*
Cristina McGrath (5th) 27:13.9
Bryley Gilbert (6th) 27:36.4 *PR*
Erica McGrath (8th) 33:01.7 *PR*
Edie Bittner (10th) 39:03.5 *PR*

 

BOYS:

Mitchell Hall (3rd) 19:20.1
Carson Field (4th) 19:44.5 *PR*
Cole White (5th) 19:47.5 *PR*
Landon Roberts (7th) 20:21.1 *PR*
Thomas Strelow (8th) 20:26.2 *PR*
Hank Milnes (10th) 21:40.2
Tate Wyman (16th) 25:42.9