Coupeville Sports

Wiley Hesselgrave, shown here putting in conditioning work, scored a team-high 13 Monday night. (John Fisken photo)

“I did not see this coming.”

Coupeville High School boys’ basketball coach Anthony Smith was a bit perplexed after his squad absorbed a 68-35 loss to visiting Meridian in its season opener Monday night.

While the Trojans had a height advantage on their hosts, the Wolves had played strongly against schools that stacked up with Meridian during the summer.

And, for one quarter and a few minutes of another, CHS looked very competitive, even with no real way to counter Meridian’s big bangers in the paint.

But a quick start evaporated and turnovers began to pile up on each other, eventually short-circuiting Coupeville’s hopes.

With a squad that will play five games in the first eight days of the season — the Wolves travel to South Whidbey Tuesday — Smith and assistant coach Dustin Van Velkinburgh will get an immediate opportunity to help their players work out the opening night kinks.

“We had some stretches tonight when we quit being aggressive. We can’t have that,” Smith said. “We did well when we were aggressive.

“We need to take the good points and learn from them and take the bad points and do the same and get back after it.”

The Wolves, led by Wiley Hesselgrave, came out on fire.

The junior, a star linebacker who often plays basketball like he’s still wearing pads and a helmet, tore through the Meridian defense, scoring Coupeville’s first nine points.

He snagged a loose ball and turned it into a layup, swished a sweet pull-up jumper, then crashed the boards hard, snagging a rebound off of a missed shot by Aaron Curtin and putting it back up and in.

Not ready to stop there, he then drained a fade-away three-point bomb from the left side, staking the Wolves to an early 9-4 lead.

Meridian, mixing speed with their height, fought back, but the first quarter was about as evenly played as possible.

Hesselgrave hit for two more on a nifty shake ‘n bake move that tore a Trojan defender out of his high tops, giving him 11 in the quarter, while Aaron Trumbull, Joel Walstad and CJ Smith all added two points apiece.

Smith’s bucket, on a driving layup two ticks of the clock before the quarter-ending buzzer, pulled CHS back to within 20-17 and it looked like it would be an evening-long battle.

But then things took a sudden detour for Coupeville.

Shots that had been going in started popping out, Hesselgrave went scoreless for two quarters and, once they had their foot on the gas, the Trojans jammed the pedal through the floor.

A brief five-point spurt (a basket and free throw from Walstad and a short jumper from Curtin) trimmed Meridian’s lead to 27-22, before the game fell apart.

Over the next quarter and a half, Meridian went on a 29-3 tear, turning a closely-played contest into a rout. In the blink of an eye — and a never-ending string of layups — Coupeville fell behind 56-25.

The Wolf offense that had been so effective in the first quarter, scoring 17 points in eight minutes, only scored 18 more in the final 24 minutes of play.

Hesselgrave added a bucket in the game’s final seconds to lift his team-high scoring output to 13, while Trumbull added six and Walstad banged away for five.

Smith and Matt Shank each tacked on four, Curtin hit for two and Risen Johnson netted a free throw to round out the scoring attack.

Ryan Griggs, Gabe Wynn and freshman Hunter Smith all saw playing time as well.

JV falls: In the night’s opening game, the Wolves hit five three-point bombs, but could do little else offensively and fell 62-19.

Coupeville actually stayed close in the early going, pulling within seven at 18-11 midway through the second quarter after DeAndre Mitchell sliced through the Trojan defense for a quick bucket.

Unfortunately, the Wolves wouldn’t score again until Desmond Bell nailed a trey several minutes into the fourth quarter.

At that point, Meridian had run off 33 consecutive points, including a flawless 22-0 third quarter.

Bell paced Coupeville with six points, while DeAndre Mitchell added five. Cameron Toomey-Stout and Dante Mitchell each hit a three-pointer and Hunter Smith tossed in a layup.

Brian Shank, Nick Etzell, James Vidoni, Beauman Davis and Joey Lippo also saw court time, with Lippo starting.

The night’s biggest cheer from the crowd, in either game, came when Toomey-Stout, who is listed at five-foot-one in the program, went airborne and spiked a Meridian shot into the stands.

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