David King has preached defense all season, and it has carried the Wolves back to the playoffs. (Amy King photo)
Kyla Briscoe was one of three Wolves honored on Senior Night. (Jackie Calkins photos)
An injury has kept senior Mikayla Elfrank on the bench for a chunk of the season, but she and her family could joke about it as they all sported bandaged legs.
Allison Wenzel capped Senior Night by playing like a beast on defense.
Defense is their calling card.
Through injuries and defections, through great games and struggles, the Coupeville High School girls basketball squad has hung its hat on stopping the other team from putting the ball in the bucket this season.
Saturday night was a prime example, as the Wolves stepped up huge, holding visiting Chimacum scoreless for 10 minutes to open the second half.
Sparked by the rush of corralling rebounds, taking charges and making off with steal after steal, Coupeville held on for a taut 36-29 win in a game which decided the #2 playoff seed from the Olympic League.
Now 8-13 overall after winning for the fourth time in their last six games, the Wolves finished 6-3 in Olympic League play.
They will host a loser-out playoff game next Saturday, Feb. 10 against the #3 team from the Nisqually League. Their foe will be known after play in that conference wraps Tuesday.
Win that postseason clash and Coupeville advances to the double-elimination portion of districts, from which three of four teams will move on to the state tourney.
After three consecutive 9-0 seasons, Coupeville capped a 33-3 run through the four-team conference by pulling off maybe its biggest accomplishment.
In past seasons, the Wolves had a transcendent star in Makana Stone and deep, veteran rosters.
This time around, they began by losing four starters (three to graduation, one to a transfer), then lost two more, including their leading scorer, as the season progressed.
That required CHS coach David King to find different ways to win, and defense has always been at the core of his teachings.
Saturday night, in the crucible against a very physical Chimacum squad, it paid off handsomely.
“Defensively we have been working really hard on sliding our feet and not reaching,” King said. “Tonight we really played the way we wanted.
“Sarah (Wright) and Allison (Wenzel) were so outstanding stopping the dribble drive,” he added. “Then you take our steals off of our press and going hard to the basket once we had the ball – exactly the goal.”
Clinging to a 20-18 lead at the half, the Wolves erupted from the locker room with fire in their eyes and passion in their hearts.
With youngsters like Scout Smith and Chelsea Prescott coming of age under considerable fire from the elbow-throwing and hip-checking Cowboys, Coupeville’s defense stood tall in the third quarter.
Forcing wild shots or turnovers, then pounding the boards or getting out on the break, the Wolves took control of the game with a 10-0 run.
Kyla Briscoe netted an epic three-ball from the left side, while Ema Smith, Wright and Lindsey Roberts all drained huge buckets off of set-ups from teammates.
Wenzel fed Ema Smith, Scout Smith punched the ball between defenders to find Wright, and Prescott laid the ball right on Robert’s fingertips on a note-perfect in-bounds pass.
Coupeville’s shooting touch dried up a bit in the fourth, as the Wolves couldn’t get a field goal to drop.
A combination of stellar defense, free throws from Ema Smith (she drained six pressure-packed freebies in the game’s final minutes) and Chimacum’s terrible night at the free throw stripe (8-25) prevented the Cowboys from mounting a full comeback.
Chimacum pulled within 33-29 with a little over a minute to play, but Ema Smith drained three of four free throws to close the scoring.
Even better, the Wolf defense thoroughly shut down the Cowboys over those final 60 seconds, not letting the ball come anywhere close to hitting the net.
The game had started with a little back and forth, as Coupeville went to the first break up 9-6.
Scout Smith had the sweetest bucket of the quarter, pulling in a long pass from Briscoe, then hanging in air for an eternity before slapping home a layup over a defender’s outstretched arm.
The second quarter belonged to Roberts, who played the entire 32 minutes and combined with Wright to dominate on the boards.
The Wolf junior tossed in six points in the quarter, sticking a jumper back in off of a rebound, before converting on a pair of breakaways.
Scout Smith was back at it again, as well, losing the handle on the ball, only to spin and steal the ball right back from a Cowboy.
Completing the play o’ wonder, she promptly knocked down the layup to thoroughly befuddle Chimacum.
Ema Smith and Roberts paced the Wolves with 10 points apiece, while Wright knocked down seven, Briscoe popped for five and Scout Smith had a dazzling four.
Prescott, Wenzel and Hannah Davidson all contributed greatly to Coupeville’s withering defense.
JV falls in final moments:
The win slipped through the fingers of the Wolf young guns in literally the final few seconds, as Chimacum scored the last four points en route to a 33-29 win.
The loss leaves the JV with a final record of 3-5 in league play, 7-11 overall.
Coupeville fell behind 8-0 in the early going, then rode the stellar shooting of Ashlie Shank and some strong defense of its own to get back in the game.
Shank, who rattled in a game-high 14, got the Wolves on the board with back-to-back buckets to end the first quarter, then tossed in 10 more in the second-half.
After surging in front 10-8 midway through the second, when Maddie Hilkey took a pass from Avalon Renninger and slashed through two defenders for a go-ahead basket, CHS led most of the way.
Chimacum didn’t regain the lead until a minute into the fourth, when a 6-0 run put it up 24-20.
Shank was having none of that, knocking down a jumper, then snatching a rebound off of a missed free throw and knotting the game up with a put-back.
From that point, there were four lead changes, with neither team being more than two points ahead.
A free throw from Genna Wright gave the teams their final tie, at 29-29, but Chimacum slipped in a basket off of a nice roll under the hoop by their point guard, then sealed the deal with two free throws.
Hilkey finished with six to back Shank’s 14, while Wright (3), Renninger (2), Tia Wurzrainer (2) and Nicole Lester (2) also scored.
Kylie Chernikoff, Julia García Oñoro and Mollie Bailey also saw court time in the JV team’s season finale.
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