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Posts Tagged ‘Basketball’

Stone thrills, Queens rally falls short

Posted in Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Makana Stone slashes to the hoop. (Photo property Simeon Bacolod)

Probably not the way they wanted to open a new year.

Returning to action Saturday in Norway, the Ammerud professional women’s basketball squad rallied late, but couldn’t quite get all the way back in a 67-62 loss to previously winless Bergen.

The loss, which came despite another epic performance from Coupeville grad Makana Stone, drops the Queens to 3-8 on the season, heading into a matchup Sunday with high-flying Ulriken, which sits at 8-1.

Ammerud led 14-13 heading into the first break Saturday, before Bergen, which entered the day at 0-9, surged ahead.

A 20-13 run in the second quarter put Bergen ahead 33-27 at the half, before a 23-13 third-quarter advantage pushed the lead out to 56-40.

While the Queens put together their best sustained offensive attack in the final frame, time eventually ran out on the comeback bid.

Stone went down swinging, however, finishing with 34 points, 14 rebounds, two assists, and seven steals.

Bergen countered by putting three players into double digits, while Ammerud is still looking for a consistent #2 to help its American assassin.

Now in her third year of overseas pro ball, Stone has racked up 241 points, 132 rebounds, 36 assists, 37 steals, and seven blocked shots this season.

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Double digits for the four-digit club

Posted in Basketball, tagged , , , , , , on January 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Logan Downes lines up a free throw during his junior season. (Andrew Williams photo)

It’s the gold standard.

Across 107 seasons of Coupeville High School basketball, we’ve documented 762 different players — 416 boys and 246 girls — scoring in a varsity game.

Until today, only nine had topped the 1,000-point barrier.

Now, it’s double digits for the four-digit club.

Wolf senior Logan Downes became the sixth CHS boy, and tenth player overall in school history, to achieve hoops immortality, doing so Friday on a slash to the hoop as time ran down in the first quarter of a 72-30 rout at Darrington.

The silky sniper finished with 16 points in limited minutes and sits at 227 with half his senior season left to play.

The Wolves, now 8-2 on the current campaign, have 10 regular-season games still on the schedule (assuming a postponed South Whidbey clash is reinstated), then hopefully a long playoff run.

The look of a freshman who’s coming for all the records. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Downes scored 52 points as a freshman during a Covid-shortened season, then jumped to 172 the next year, helping CHS win a league title and advance to state.

As a junior, he torched the nets for 554 points, the second-best single-season performance in school history, trailing just Jeff Stone’s 644 in 1969-1970.

Downes is averaging 22.7 a night as a senior.

 

The CHS 1,000-point club:

Brianne King — 1,549
Novi Barron — 1,270
Makana Stone — 1,158
Jeff Stone — 1,137
Mike Bagby — 1,137
Randy Keefe — 1,088
Megan Smith — 1,042
Mike Criscoula — 1,031
Jeff Rhubottom — 1,012
Logan Downes — 1,005 and counting

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Wolf Nation mourns loss of ’90s star

Posted in In memory, tagged , , , , on January 4, 2024| 3 Comments »

Gabe McMurray powers to the hoop for a bucket during an alumni game. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Gabe McMurray was a beast.

One of the big stars at Coupeville High School during my days as Sports Editor at the Whidbey News-Times in the early ’90s, he dominated in multiple sports and left an enduring impact on a writer only a few years older than he was.

The news that he passed away this week, well before his time, hits hard, and I extend my sympathies to his family and friends.

A 1995 graduate of CHS, Gabe scorched the basketball nets for 592 points, and surely grabbed as many rebounds, while playing alongside Brad Miller in one of the most formidable one-two combos I’ve witnessed during my on-again, off-again years in the Coupeville gym.

Standing at six-feet-two inches, he capped his prep hoops career by being named a First-Team All-League pick by Cascade League coaches.

That year, Gabe poured in a team-high 355 points for Randy King’s squad, still one of the best single-season performances by a Wolf basketball player, boy or girl.

That came on the heels of a 235-point performance during his junior campaign, while his first varsity bucket hit the bottom of the net when he was a sophomore.

Gabe, who was also a standout on the football field, was an inductee in the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, and came back around in his later years to prove he still had it, throwing down buckets in alumni games while often facing off with younger rivals.

He was one of a kind, as an athlete and a person.

Gabe’s former classmates and fellow Wolf athletes gathered on social media to remember him as word filtered out.

In the words of Natalie (Slater) Fisher on Facebook:

“Today CHS lost a friend. You touched many with your kindness, sarcasm, and contagious smile. You will be missed.”

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Hoops stars slip slidin’ through winter break

Posted in Basketball, standings, tagged , , , , on December 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »

If the league standings adjust even an inch, Coupeville Athletic Director Willie Smith knows about it. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

We’re starting to come out of hibernation.

After almost two weeks of no games, the Coupeville High School basketball teams return to action next Friday, Jan. 5 with a trip to the wilds of Darrington.

While the Wolves have been on ice, several other Northwest 2B/1B League squads continued to play over the holidays, facing non-conference foes.

Where win/loss records sit on Dec. 31:

 

Northwest League boys’ basketball:

School League Overall
MV Christian 3-0 3-8
Coupeville 1-0 7-2
Orcas Island 2-1 5-6
Concrete 1-2 4-5
La Conner 0-0 6-4
Friday Harbor 0-1 4-4
Darrington 0-3 3-5

 

Northwest League girls’ basketball:

School League Overall
MV Christian 3-0 9-3
Friday Harbor 1-0 3-7
Darrington 2-1 4-4
Concrete 1-2 6-4
La Conner 0-0 6-3
Coupeville 0-1 3-6
Orcas Island 0-3 1-8

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Caleb Meyer, undefeated once more

Posted in Basketball, Wolves in college, tagged , , , on December 30, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Caleb Meyer, rockin’ the beard and bellowing at the heavens. (Photo property Jon Brennan)

Second-best win streak of his hoops career.

Coupeville High School grad Caleb Meyer, who played a huge role in the Wolves hardwood squad ripping off 16 straight victories during his senior season, is back at it.

McKenzie’s “lil” bro, currently a sophomore at Skagit Valley College, is now part of a Cardinals crew which heads into the new year boasting a 14-0 mark.

SVC got there by shredding Wenatchee Valley College 103-67 Saturday afternoon, and now is off until Jan. 5 when it travels to play Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford, British Columbia.

The Cardinals have 15 games remaining on their regular season schedule, then hopefully a long playoff run.

Meyer has played in 12 games this season, racking up nine points, four rebounds, four assists, four steals, and 10 tooth-rattling fouls.

During his time in Coupeville, he helped lead Wolf boys’ basketball to its best season in three decades-plus during the 2021-2022 campaign.

CHS, a 2B school, went undefeated during the regular season, stunned 3A Oak Harbor to rule Whidbey, captured league and district crowns, then pushed state powers Kalama and Lake Roosevelt to the final moments at the big dance.

The last heir to Videoville also earned a 2nd place medal at the state track championships for his work on the 4 x 100 relay squad.

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