Coupeville Sports

When CHS hoops coach Amy King needs to teach a lesson about teamwork…

   she tells the story of the time Amy Mouw helped the Wolves advance to the state tourney thanks to…

an unexpected decision by her teammate, Samantha Roehl.

Amy King has seen a lot in 20 seasons as a high school coach.

But there’s one story she pulls out when times are tough, when teams are starting to fracture, when her players need to know the difference between being just an athlete and being a true teammate.

It comes from the 2002-2003 girls’ basketball season, when she was an assistant coach working with Greg Oldham at Coupeville High School.

The Wolves were coming off the best performance in program history, having gone 23-5 and finished 6th at state the previous year.

And while they had lost big weapons Ashley Ellsworth-Bagby, Tracy Taylor and Sarah Mouw to graduation, they still had tons ‘o talent.

Brianne King, who still holds Coupeville’s career scoring record for girls (1,546 points) was heading into her senior season, and she was joined by Amy Mouw, Carly Guillory, Erica and Taniel Lamb, Vanessa Davis and a shot-blocking sophomore and future league MVP named Lexie Black.

The squad was so deep future college hoops player Brittany Black (admittedly just a freshman at the time) only saw action in 12 of 28 games.

The Wolves roared through the regular season at a 15-5 clip, finishing 8-2 in the Northwest A League, bested only by Archbishop Thomas Murphy twice.

Once they hit tri-districts, they got even hotter, winning three of four — losing only to the state’s #1-ranked team, King’s — then won two of four games at state (where they pushed eventual 1A champ Brewster to the wire), claiming 8th place.

But lost in the hubbub about a 20-8 record and another banner to hang on the wall was a small, but very important, moment at tri-districts.

Mouw, who was the team’s #2 scorer behind Brianne King, was helping to lead the Coupeville charge, until someone noticed she had blood all over her uniform — a big no-no in the days of heightened disease awareness.

“I remember the game and discovering during a timeout that I had blood all over,” Mouw said. “Amy King, Coach Oldham’s wife and I all ran down to the locker room and one of them washed out my jersey top and the other my shorts in the sinks trying to get the blood out while I tried to figure out where I was bleeding.

“Ended up just being a cut on my pinkie finger that bled like crazy.”

Despite the scrub-job, the blood wasn’t responding to the water and it looked like Mouw might be sidelined at a crucial moment.

At which point Samantha Roehl, who, in tribute to her last name, was a role player on a team full of stars, stepped up and did something few high school athletes would do.

She turned down the chance to replace Mouw on the floor and instead sacrificed her chance to play.

“She told us, she needs that uniform more than I do,” Amy King said. “And she immediately went and swapped out what Amy needed so she could return.”

“I do remember that pretty clearly and that’s about exactly what happened,” Roehl said. “They were going to put me in, but, because I hadn’t played in the game yet, technically my number hadn’t had any points or fouls against it, so I offered that they use my jersey for Amy so that she could keep playing with a fresh number.”

Oldham was caught up in the game at the time and missed most of the shuffle, but looking back now, he could see it happening.

“Sammie was a good teammate,” he said.

For Amy King, who has since gone on to coach volleyball, softball and much more basketball at CHS, Roehl’s decision is one she has treasured.

“When I get a team that gets a little full of themselves, that starts to forget that everyone on the team truly matters, from the top of the rotation to the last body on the bench, I pull that story out,” she said. “It, to me, is what high school sports are supposed to be about.”

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