Breeanna Messner, the steadiest of stars. (Shelli Trumbull photos)
Former Wolf basketball star Bessie Walstad (left) and boyfriend Josh Wilsey are joined by a very happy Shawn Walstad.
David King was smiling after this one.
The Coupeville High School girls’ basketball coach had just collected his fourth win in a row, a 50-44 drubbing of visiting Orcas Island Saturday that lifted the Wolves to a crisp 5-2 on the season.
But it was more than that. It was how the game was won.
Playing less than 24 hours after fighting off La Conner — a game in which Coupeville was coming off a 17-day break — the Wolves attacked, time and again.
And then, at the end, they pulled back and worked the clock like pros, draining time off and never allowing the Vikings a chance to mount a comeback.
“It was nice that they slowed it down (at the end),” King said. “This was a good test for us, playing back to back. Both physical and mentally.
“At times we struggled with mental fatigue,” he added. “The great thing is we fought through that fatigue and got defensive stops when we needed to.”
Coupeville came out on fire, with super sophomore Makana Stone slicing through the Orcas defense for 10 first-quarter points.
The Vikings staged a mini-rally with a pair of three-point bombs, then Wolf senior Breeanna Messner, the steadiest of steady players, took the ball in her hands and slapped the Vikings down.
First Messner buried her own trey, but got extra artistic points for angling it in off the backboard.
Then she exploded upwards through two bigger Orcas players, yanked down a rebound and immediately took it back up for a hard-earned bucket.
“Earlier in the week we focused on weak-side offensive rebounds and this showed up tonight with Bree and Makana leading the way,” King said. “The rest of the team followed suit, which put pressure on Orcas.”
Just as Orcas thought they knew who to guard, Coupeville added a new wrinkle, with spark-plug Madeline Strasburg throwing down a burst of vintage Maddie Big Time.
Strasburg banged home a jumper from the top of the key, then picked the pocket of a Viking ballhander on consecutive plays, turning both loose balls into breakaway layins.
Orcas made one last push early in the third, riding a string of free throws to claim a 28-27 lead.
Re-enter the wham-bam duo of Stone and Strasburg, with a little help from Hailey Hammer inside, Amanda Fabrizi outside (a nifty three-pointer from really long range) and Julia Myers everywhere.
Game over, man, game over.
The defining play of the game may have come in the fourth, when Messner went airborne and, just short of throwing out her back, managed to redirect a loose ball back to Myers a second before it would have been out of bounds.
With the ball in her hands, the Wolf junior calmly lobbed in a pull-up jumper, then sprinted back to play defense, a small smile gracing her lips as the shoulders of the Orcas players sagged.
Coupeville, which now returns to Cascade Conference play with a game at Sultan (2-6) Tuesday, was paced by Stone (19) and Strasburg (13).
Messner banked home six, Hammer and Myers netted four apiece, Fabrizi had her trey and Wynter Thorne swished a pressure-packed fourth-quarter free throw that loomed large.
McKayla Bailey just about ripped the head off an Orcas player in a scramble for a loose ball, Monica Vidoni gave assistance on the boards and Kacie Kiel, out for a second game with an injury, was a vocal cheerleader from her post on the bench.
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