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Posts Tagged ‘Alex Turner’

Turner earns gridiron promotion

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , on August 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Alex Turner rocks an impressive amount of hair last fall. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Coupeville High School football has a new assistant coach, and he’s a familiar face.

Former Wolf player Alex Turner, who has been working with the program as a volunteer, has been hired to replace Brett Casey, who stepped down at the end of last season to focus on his work as a teacher.

The hire was confirmed Thursday by Coupeville Athletic Director Brad Sherman and will be official once approved by the school board at its next meeting.

CHS gridiron gurus are shuffling their duties, with head coach Bennett Richter moving to the offensive side of the ball, while assistant coach Bobby Carr has taken over the defense.

Turner, who played his senior season for Coupeville after suiting up for South Whidbey for several years, will now coach special teams while continuing to work with position players.

The 2019 CHS grad attended school and played sports in Cow Town as a middle school athlete and high school freshman, before moving South before his sophomore year.

He was an All-Conference lineman for the Falcons, and a successful wrestler.

After returning to Coupeville, Turner was a force on the football field for the Wolves, then qualified for the 1A state tourney as the school’s lone grappler, going 2-2 at Mat Classic XXXI in Tacoma.

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Wolf big man chases mat glory

Posted in Wrestling, tagged , , , , on December 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »

CHS football players Adrian Cunningham (left) and Jaje Drake show off weight room work. (Sophia Broderick photo)

Here I go again on my own,

Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known,

Like a drifter I was born to walk alone.

The heyday of ’80s rock gods Whitesnake came long before Jaje Drake was born, but the words of their biggest song, Here I Go Again, ring true as the Wolf senior chases his wrestling dream.

Coupeville is one of the few high schools in the state not to have its own grappling program, so any athletes wanting to hit the mat have to do so through another school.

For Drake, that reunites him with South Whidbey — where he attended middle school.

This time around, he’s training and traveling with the Falcons through the regular season, while competing as a one-man Coupeville wrecking crew.

When the postseason arrives, he’ll go his own way, since CHS is a 2B school and SWHS is a 1A one.

It’s a path similar to that followed by one of Drake’s Wolf football coaches, Alex Turner, who made the same trek during his own senior season.

Drake, who has put in considerable time in the weight room and was a captain for Coupeville’s gridiron squad, is currently slated to wrestle in the 220-pound class.

Dreaming about state meet glory. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

When football ended, the Wolf big man decided to find a different outlet, looking to add more success to his senior year.

“What led me to do this decision is just the fact that I was not done showing people what I can do before they may never see me in action again,” he said.

Getting a strong reaction from mat fans is nice, as well.

“What I enjoy about wrestling is just seeing people’s faces when they see me come onto the mat,” Drake said.

“Shocked faces and little comments, like “Holy crap, that man HUGE.”

His season gets fully underway Thursday as South Whidbey hosts Oak Harbor in a match which starts at 6:00 PM.

After that, Drake has his eyes set firmly on the prize.

“My goals are to go to state,” he said. “And be the only one walking down the state giveaway line with all the people wishing me luck.”

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A final blast of mat action, in living color

Posted in Wrestling, tagged , , , , , on February 17, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Coupeville senior Alex Turner (in back) plays Twister with Medical Lake’s Jared Pendall during the state wrestling championships. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

Turner puts Vashon’s Finnegan McClure down hard.

Oak Harbor coach Larry Falcon (left) and Coupeville wrestling guru Tyson Boon monitor the mat action.

The calm before the storm.

Falcon offers some advice. “Grip ’em and rip ’em.”

Turner and Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls) grappler Micah Tenny go to work.

“Hey, if we’re gonna dance, I want to lead!”

One wrestler, one photographer.

Coupeville High School senior Alex Turner, a grappler without a program, had a successful run this weekend at the state championships, and John Fisken bounced around the Tacoma Dome shadowing him.

The nimble Whidbey paparazzi was also at Mat Classic XXXI to shoot Oak Harbor’s batch of wrestlers, but they have their own media outlet to hype them up, so here the focus falls solely on the Lone Wolf.

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“We are all really proud of him”

Posted in Wrestling, tagged , , , , , on February 16, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Coupeville wrestler Alex Turner (right) and coach Tyson Boon enjoy a moment at Mat Classic XXXI. (BreAnna Boon photos)

The Lone Wolf grappler heads for the door after outscoring his foes 33-10 at the state wrestling championships.

The road ended a little earlier than hoped, but the trail has been blazed.

Coupeville High School senior Alex Turner, a one-man Wolf wrestling crew, was eliminated on day two of the super-sized Mat Classic XXXI at the Tacoma Dome.

Turner lost by the narrowest of margins Saturday, nipped in a 2-1 decision by Jared Pendell of Medical Lake in an elimination contest in the 170-pound division.

While he fell just shy of earning a state meet medal, Turner finished his first run at the championships with a 2-2 record, having outscored his foes 33-10.

Both of his victories Friday were blowouts, while his losses, one Friday, the other Saturday, came down to the final moments of full-length matches.

After wrestling for South Whidbey previously, where he was an alternate to state as a junior, things changed when Turner and his family moved back to Coupeville, where he attended middle school.

CHS has never had a wrestling program, one of just a handful of 1A schools which don’t, so Turner trained, traveled and wrestled alongside 3A Oak Harbor, while not adding to that school’s scores.

Once the postseason started, he returned to 1A, where he swept three matches en route to winning a sub-regional title.

Snowmageddon swept aside the regional tournaments, kicking Turner on to state, where he was part of record-sized 32-man brackets.

The state meet traditionally fields 16-athlete brackets, and will return to the format next year … barring another winter weather surprise.

While Saturday marked the end of Turner’s unique mat odyssey, CHS assistant football coach Tyson Boon, who escorted the grappler through the postseason, hopes it marks the start of more.

“Yes, that is the end of this story, but I hope it starts a new chapter for Coupeville,” Boon said. “If Coupeville can get a wrestling team out of this, Alex can always say he paved the way and opened the door.

“We are all really proud of him. He did great things for himself and hopefully for the future of Coupeville High School.”

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Lone Wolf grappler chases state meet medal

Posted in Wrestling, tagged , , , , , on February 15, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Coupeville senior Alex Turner won two of three matches Friday at the state wrestling championships in Tacoma. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

He’s in it for the full run.

Coupeville High School senior Alex Turner, a one-man Wolf wrestling team, won two of three matches Friday at Mat Classic XXXI in Tacoma, keeping alive his quest for a state meet medal.

Surviving day one of the super-sized event, he’ll return to the mats at the crack of dawn Saturday, and is in the mix to finish as high as 3rd place in 1A in the 170-pound class.

Turner opened against Finnegan McClure of Vashon Island and whacked him, hard, claiming a 15-0 technical fall.

His middle match of the day was his toughest, as he fought through three full rounds before being nipped 7-4 by Micah Tenny of Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls).

With his back to the wall, and knowing a second loss would knock him out of the tourney, Turner reached down deep to deliver another smack-down.

Running Juan Perez of Highland off the mat to the tune of a 13-1 majority decision, he capped a day in which he outscored his foes by a combined score of 32-8.

Turner opens Saturday against Jared Pendell of Medical Lake.

Win there, and he moves on to face the loser of a quarterfinal match between Sammy DesRoches of Riverside and Brett Moody of Forks.

Those two are the #3 and #4 ranked 170-pound wrestlers in 1A this season, respectively, and DesRoches finished 2nd at state last season.

Put together another solid run Saturday and Turner could earn the first wrestling state meet medal in CHS history.

To do that, he needs to earn a top-eight finish.

Since Coupeville has never had a wrestling program, Turner, who transferred to Coupeville from South Whidbey for his senior year, trained and traveled with 3A Oak Harbor.

He returned to 1A for the postseason and swept three matches en route to winning a sub-regional title.

After snow and ice wiped out all regional tournaments across the state, the WIAA elected to advance everyone to state, working with 32-athlete brackets in each weight class.

The state plans to return to 16-athlete brackets next season, as in years past.

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