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One step away!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , , on December 8, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Lindsey Roberts scored a game-high 11 Friday, passing mom Sherry to claim family career scoring honors. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Their record is a bit deceptive.

Stung by poor free throw shooting down the stretch Friday, the Coupeville High School girls basketball team fell 39-35 to visiting 2A Sequim.

And, with that loss, the Wolves fall to 1-4 heading into another non-conference game Saturday, this one on the road at South Whidbey.

But the record is deceptive, as I said, because if a few plays go differently, a ball bounces in a different direction, or some free throws drop, and CHS is 4-1, maybe even 5-0.

The Wolves, who are rebuilding after losing four starters, have been in every one of their games until the end, with three of four losses by six points or less.

Friday night was a classic example of how Coupeville is playing this season — scrappy on defense, opportunistic on offense, but just not always clicking on every cylinder.

Time after time against Sequim, the Wolves would rally, put together a nice run, pull within a single bucket, then not be able to get over that last hump.

CHS led twice, at 6-5 after Ema Smith threw her rear into a defender and backed her down for a solid bucket in the paint, and 19-18 right before the half.

At that moment, the Wolves were on their best run of the night, a 10-2 surge which saw four different players score.

Kyla Briscoe started it with a soft jumper in the paint, then Scout Smith tickled the nets for a pair of free throws before setting up Lindsey Roberts for a bucket with a beautiful entry pass.

Add two more free throws from Roberts, who passed mom Sherry to become the family’s all-time leading scorer (she had already beaten her grandfather, dad, two uncles and an aunt) and a coast-to-coast romp by Kalia Littlejohn, and the heat was on.

Littlejohn, who spent much of the night driving Sequim’s ball-handlers batty, picked the pocket of a rival, then thundered to daylight, slicing between two sprinting defenders to slap the ball up and off the glass.

But, as good as the moment seemed, it was fleeting.

Sequim dropped in a short jumper to regain the lead and end the half, then refused to surrender the momentum in the second half.

Three times the Wolves repeated the same sequence — fall behind, rally within a bucket, then fall behind again — before eventually running out of opportunities and time.

Free throws were a true killer as the game played out.

After hitting five of six freebies in the second quarter, Coupeville made just 4-17 free throws in the second half, including missing seven in the game’s final 51 seconds.

As he watched it play out, CHS coach David King had a mixed reaction.

“Throughout our first five games we have done a very good job of attacking the basket and getting to the free throw line,” he said. “Today we shot 23. I’ll take that every game.

“We just aren’t capitalizing with all of the misses,” King added. “We have to start taking advantage if we are to take the next step up as a team.”

Coupeville kept things close in the final seconds by hitting the boards (and the floor) hard.

Mikayla Elfrank ripped a rebound away from a Sequim player on one of the missed free throws, turning it into second chance points, while Ema Smith was an artist.

Crashing to the floor, she pulled a loose ball from between a player’s legs, then alertly popped up to her knees and delivered a bounce pass right on to the fingertips of Roberts.

Bing-bang-boom and a broken play turns into a Wolf bucket.

Hustle plays like that, and the take-no-prisoners style of team leaders like Littlejohn (“Kalia played outstanding again for us”) offer genuine hope for King as the team prepares to launch a bid for a fourth-straight Olympic League crown.

Coupeville’s hoops guru also liked what his players brought to the court on defense.

“At times we caused some turnovers with our press. We did some good things,” King said. “It’s a work in progress and we are dedicating more time to making it a disruptive part of our game.

“A good start tonight.”

Roberts paced Coupeville with 11 points, lifting the junior to 173 in her career. Her mom scored 165 in her Sherry Bonacci days before graduating in 1989.

Elfrank and Littlejohn each tossed in nine, while Scout Smith, Briscoe and Ema Smith all had a bucket to round out the scoring.

Allison Wenzel, Sarah Wright and Avalon Renninger saw floor time as well for the Wolves.

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Seven straight – so sweet!!

Posted in Basketball, Wolves in college, tagged , , , , on December 8, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Makana Stone, seen here in action last weekend, scored a game-high 15 Friday as Whitman won its seventh straight. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Everything is clicking.

Sparked by Coupeville grad Makana Stone, who threw down a game-high 15 points Friday, the Whitman College women’s basketball squad rolled to its seventh straight win.

The Blues held off a late challenge from Carroll College of Montana to win 59-55 in a game played in Spokane.

It was the opener of the 2017 Holiday Classic presented by Red Lion River Inn, and the victory lifts Whitman to 7-1.

Stone and Co. will go for a clean sweep at the tourney Saturday when they play Colorado College.

Friday night, the Blues faced a Fighting Saints squad which entered the night at 5-2. Just as expected, it was a close one.

But Whitman had the biggest weapon in Stone, the sophomore sensation who leads her team in scoring this season.

She was a threat all night, dropping the game’s first bucket and scoring in all four quarters.

A pair of layups in the first got things going, then Stone added five in the second, two in the third and four in the final quarter.

She also snagged three rebounds and dealt out four assists, while Maegan Martin matched her with 15 points.

Through eight games, Stone has 115 points, 48 rebounds, 15 assists, five steals and a blocked shot.

She’s shooting a team-best 65% from the floor, hitting 48 of 74 shots, and 76% on 19-25 from the free throw line.

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Foiled in Forks!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, Middle School, tagged , , , , on December 8, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Grady Rickner, seen here last season, dropped in a bucket Thursday in a close loss at Forks. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The Wolves got a reminder that long before he became a Coupeville coach/teacher/administrator, Ron Bagby was a state title-winning legend in Forks. (Bob Martin photo)

One was close, the other not so much.

Having traveled to the wilds of Forks Thursday, the Coupeville Middle School boys hoops squads had wildly different results.

The CMS varsity, a much more battle-hardened squad, fought down to the end before narrowly falling 34-31 to the host Spartans.

Meanwhile, the Wolf JV, which features a ton of first-year players, was rolled 76-21.

The losses dropped the two squads to 1-2 and 0-3, respectively.

Coupeville returns home next Monday, Dec. 11, when Port Townsend’s Blue Heron MS pops in for a visit.

Tip-off is 3:15, with JV followed by varsity.

Varsity:

Six of the seven Wolves to see action scored, with four of those players netting a three-ball.

Logan Martin was the most consistent player in red and white, rumbling for a team-high nine points. He was the only Wolf to score in every quarter, as well.

Raining down a pair of treys, Xavier Murdy backed up Martin with six points, while Caleb Meyer (6), Cody Roberts (5), Hawthorne Wolfe (3), Grady Rickner (2) and Aiden Burdge rounded out the roster.

JV:

Forks has a very strong youth hoops program, and that showed, as the Spartans young guns were very polished ball-hawks.

Isaiah Bittner paced Coupeville with eight points, while Kevin Partida chipped in with four. Levi Pulliam (3), Burdge (3) and Dominic Coffman (1) also scored.

And yes, that equals 19 and not 21.

A third quarter basket for the Wolves was recorded, but not awarded to a player, forever denying historians.

Such is life.

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Spanish hoops star embraces small town life!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , , on December 6, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Spanish foreign exchange student Julia García Oñoro is adding to her American experience with a stint as a CHS basketball player. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

García Oñoro works on her dribbling skills during a recent practice.

“I loved this town since the day I arrive.”

Trading bustling Guadalajara, Spain for low-key Coupeville has been a big change for Julia García Oñoro, but it’s one the foreign exchange student turned basketball star is enjoying.

“It’s really nice here; it is really different from any place I’ve been before,” she said. “While I was in Spain I was always looking in Google maps and photos about Coupeville, but anyways it still surprised me, how beautiful it is.”

“My town was nothing like here,” García Oñoro added. “Alovera has a lot more people and it’s a lot dryer; well, all that area has a dry weather.

“We barely see the rain and we don’t have the same kind of trees as here and of course not that many.”

Like most foreign exchange students, García Oñoro didn’t choose her destination. But, wherever she landed, it was a journey she was anticipating.

“It was really unexpected,” she said. “One day I was with my dad in the car and he suddenly asked me if I wanted to do it. I didn’t even think about it, my answer was yes.

“I really was into the idea because the last summer I spent a month as a foreign student in England, and it was fantastic,” García Oñoro added. “And not always you have the opportunity to go and live abroad and learn another language.”

In preparation for the trip, she filled out questionnaires and wrote a letter about herself, so that prospective host families could get a feel for her as a person.

When she landed in a cow town on a rock in the middle of the water in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, it was kismet.

“I didn’t choose Coupeville, but anyways, if I had the opportunity I would probably choose it or a place similar to this,” García Oñoro said.

With the arrival of winter, she’s joined Amy King’s Wolf JV basketball team, a first-time player learning the game under a sage hoops guru.

Enjoying her first experience with American high school sports, García Oñoro is considering playing tennis or competing in track and field in the spring.

After her year in America, she’ll return to Spain to live with her mother, where she’ll finish her final year of high school.

Down the road, García Oñoro plans to study economics and international business while living with her grandparents.

That will give her an opportunity to combine further schooling with providing assistance to her grandmother and grandfather.

When she’s not in the gym working on perfecting her skills on the basketball court, García Oñoro enjoys reading. Though she admits her mind wanders at times.

“I love reading, but I can’t deny that I procrastinate a lot with it,” she said. “I always end up in my phone reading stories in Wattpad or wasting my time in Tumblr.

“Another thing I like is music,” García Oñoro added. “I can spend hours listening it or looking for new artists or songs.”

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Never, ever, back down!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, Middle School, tagged , , , , on December 4, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Logan Martin, seen here last season, went for seven points Monday in a hard-fought game with Stevens. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

It was a small moment, but the kind of thing likely to pay dividends down the road.

As his teammates milled around, talking to family, or headed to the door after Monday’s game, Coupeville 8th grade basketball star Hawthorne Wolfe sprinted back and forth in the CMS gym.

By the time he was done, he had run a mile, his own personal atonement for missing free throws early in the contest against visiting Stevens.

The free throws hadn’t been the deciding factor in the game, and Wolfe had led the Wolves in scoring, yet he felt the need to put in extra work, to not settle for good, but aim for better.

Off to the side, his teammate, Logan Martin, head phones back on and in his own world, lofted shot after shot, working on his mid-range game.

In a sport where success is built on and off the court, in season and out, the actions of the two young players bodes well for the future of Coupeville basketball.

So does their play on the court Monday, where the undermanned Wolves made several runs at their much-taller rivals before falling 56-46.

In the opening game of the doubleheader, the CMS 7th graders made a big jump forward offensively from their first game of the season, more than tripling their previous output in a 44-20 loss.

8th grade:

A mismatch everywhere but between the lines.

Coupeville had seven players, Stevens close to 37 (or so it seemed), and the visitors had a huge height advantage.

Yet, take away one bad stretch to open the fourth quarter, when the somewhat-gassed Wolves surrendered a 12-0 run, and the game was a knock-down brawl.

The Wolves jumped out early, snagging a 5-2 lead on a pair of free throws from Caleb Meyer and a three-ball off the fingertips of Xavier Murdy, then weathered repeated Stevens runs.

The game took on a particular rhythm — the visitors would surge, the game would start to slip away, then CMS would dig deep and rally right back.

Coupeville used a 9-4 run, with Martin scoring five, to close within a basket right before the end of the half.

Then the Wolves went cold for a bit, allowing Stevens to open the third with eight straight points, stretching its lead to 13.

Game over and … nope, here come the never-say-die guys in red and white.

Murdy tossed in another three-ball to kick off a rally, Grady Rickner closed it with a trey of his own, and, in between, Martin fed Wolfe for a layup with a superb outlet pass and Meyer put on a dribbling show, weaving between three different defenders while never losing the handle.

As Rickner’s shot tickled the net on its way down, Coupeville was back within 37-31 heading into the fourth and all the momentum had seemingly swung its way.

Except momentum is a fickle mistress.

Cue 12 straight points for the bad guys to open the fourth, and, once again, irrational joy for the Stevens fans in attendance.

But, down by 18, the Wolves still had some fight down deep in their souls.

Wolfe connected on back-to-back three-balls from the right side, Rickner tossed in a trey from the top and Meyer held his ground against the Stevens big trees, glaring down one elbow-prone rival who tried to rough up Murdy.

A final 15-7 surge cut the margin back down, and left CMS with remarkably-balanced scoring.

Murdy, Wolfe and Rickner netted 10 apiece, while Martin and Meyer had seven each. Cody Roberts added a bucket and some stellar defense, while Gabe Shaw worked hard on the boards during his time on the court.

In the end, the score wasn’t what they wanted, maybe, but the Wolves walked away, heads held high, eyes already on the rematch, which comes in the season finale Jan. 19.

Well, except for Wolfe, who was off and running, and Martin, who was putting up jumpers before the Stevens players had fully boarded their bus.

The will is strong in these ones, and it’s good to see.

7th grade:

Take a very polished, aggressive Stevens squad and throw them against a Coupeville team on which probably half the players are in their first season of basketball, and the result was as expected.

But the young Wolves, steadied by 8th grader Aiden Burdge, who jumped teams to run the point for a team in desperate need of a ball-handler, played progressively better as the game unfolded.

CMS brought the margin down in each quarter, from 14-2 to 12-6 to 11-7 to 7-5.

The Wolves even had a final three-point attempt, which, if it hadn’t skimmed out, would have given them a fourth quarter “win.”

Isaiah Bittner garnered Coupeville’s first basket, banging home a turnaround jumper in the final minute of the first quarter, and went on to score a team-high six points.

Burdge added four points, a blocked shot on which he came from behind to snuff the shot of a taller foe, and was a calming influence for the Wolves, who were under constant attack from Steven’s scrappy defenders.

Dominic Coffman (3), Alex Murdy (3), Kevin Partida (2) and Shaw (2) rounded out the offensive attack.

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