Tiffany Briscoe, seen here earlier in her career, paced CHS with eight points and eight boards Tuesday night. (Sylvia Hurlburt photo)
Positives? Positives, positives…
Well, I had a really good whiskey barbecue hamburger before the game. That was certainly nice.
Other than that, Tuesday night was not especially cheery for Coupeville basketball fans who made the trip to the wilds of Tacoma for the district playoffs.
The Wolf girls, who sailed in the door carrying a 15-4 record and a #1 seed from the Olympic League, did not have their “A” game going.
Or their “B” game.
Or their “C” game.
Struggling from start to finish, with a few bright spots if you looked really closely, Coupeville simply, in the words of coach David King, “didn’t give ourselves a chance to win.”
The result was a 45-32 loss to Seattle Christian which puts the Wolves with their backs to the wall.
CHS can still make it to state for a second straight year, but, to do so, it needs to win back-to-back games back in Tacoma.
Up first is a loser-out tilt with Cascade Christian (9-12), which fell 41-25 to Bellevue Christian in Tuesday’s nightcap.
That game is set for 6 PM Thursday at Bellarmine Prep High School.
Win and the Wolves return to the same gym for a third time Saturday to face the loser of Thursday’s district championship match-up between BC and SC.
The winner Saturday nabs District 3’s second and final berth to the state tourney.
To make it back to state, Coupeville needs to quickly recapture the magic which fueled its success this season.
Stop throwing more passes to the fans than to each other.
Hit a free throw, any free throw (the Wolves were an ultra-deadly 2 of 17 Tuesday at the charity stripe).
Take the court with confidence fully in place.
Whether it was the 90+ mile trip, the 10-day layoff between games or a buildup of injuries and illness chipping away at their morale, the Wolves, with a few exceptions, looked flat and out of sorts from about two seconds after tip-off.
Coupeville claimed the ball first, thanks to Lindsey Roberts, then promptly did little to nothing with it.
“We played timid on offense and it started after we won the tip,” King said. “Instead of being in attack mode and looking to get something quick and taking it strong to the basket, we moved the ball slowly and ended up using most of the shot clock before getting a shot up.
“The playoff nerves got to us as well,” he added. “This really showed up with our shooting. Many of our shots were very short and some very hard and long.”
The Wolves fell behind early, and never recovered, or held the lead for any of the game’s 32 minutes.
CHS was down just 4-2, after Kailey Kellner popped an offensive rebound back up in and in, but then, in the blink of an eye, it was 9-2.
Kellner responded with a pair of long three-balls, one from each corner, to get the Wolves within 10-8, only to have Seattle Christian respond with its own trey with just a single tick left on the first quarter clock.
Coupeville opened the second with back-to-back buckets off of inside power moves from Mikayla Elfrank and Tiffany Briscoe to narrow things to 13-12.
Then the bottom fell out of the defense, first in short spurts and then consistently.
“One thing that has been a constant all year for us, defense, was left in Coupeville and didn’t make the trip with us,” King said.
“We had a game plan on how to defend their offense and the players we wanted to stop,” he added. “Our defensive rotation wasn’t there until late in the fourth quarter. The three players we couldn’t let beat us, did.”
Those three Warrior shooters King had earmarked combined to score 41 of Seattle’s 45 points.
With Coupeville’s defense far from lock-down, its shot selection scattershot and its ball control having little control (16 turnovers in the first half alone), it made for a long evening.
Seattle Christian stretched the lead out to eight at the half, pushed it to 11 after three quarters, then used a 9-0 run to open the fourth.
Down 45-25, the Wolves finally seemed to click into place during the game’s final two-and-a-half minutes.
Mixing Briscoe with reserves Lauren Rose, Allison Wenzel, Sarah Wright, Ema Smith and Kalia Littlejohn, Coupeville finally found its groove, closing the game by scoring the final seven points.
Briscoe knocked down consecutive layups off of nice feeds from Wright and Rose before Littlejohn drained a runner in the paint to close the night out.
King singled out his senior workhorse, who finished with eight points and a team-high eight rebounds, for being the one Wolf to play a consistent game from start to finish.
“Tiffany played well on offense and rebounding. She showed up to play.”
He also liked the intensity Elfrank and Littlejohn showed during their time on the court.
“Mikayla and Kalia brought some much needed fire and effort off the bench,” King said. “They both bring it defensively nightly.”
Kellner paced Coupeville with 10 points, while Elfrank and Briscoe went for eight apiece. Kalia (5) and Mia Littlejohn (1) rounded out the offensive attack.
Elfrank (7), Roberts (6) and Mia Littlejohn (6) helped on the boards.
While he was less than thrilled with much of Tuesday’s game, King remains confident his players can find their groove again quickly.
“We have some things to figure out in a very short period. I have the utmost confidence in the players to do just that.”
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