Sophomore Logan Downes scored a game-high 14 points Friday as Coupeville ran its record to 3-0 on the season. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
Best start in 11 years.
You have to go back to the 2009-2010 season to find the last time a Coupeville High School varsity boys basketball team started 3-0.
That was the next to last of Randy King’s 20 years at the helm of the Wolf program, and it marked the third-straight season his teams accomplished the feat.
Jump forward to 2021, and the current CHS team, coached by one of King’s former stars — Brad Sherman — has matched the quick start of a 2009-2010 team which finished 16-5.
Win #3 this time around was a blowout, as Coupeville dismantled visiting Darrington 75-26 Friday in its Northwest 2B/1B League opener.
The Wolves will turn around and put that spiffy record (1-0 in conference play, 3-0 overall) on the line Saturday afternoon when they travel to Orcas Island.
The first road game for Coupeville this season, it will feature a Wolf squad which is just a single point away from having five players averaging double digit scoring.
Utilizing a smothering defense and an opportunistic offense, CHS has beaten Oak Harbor, Forks, and Darrington by embracing an attack by committee.
Anyone on the roster can kill you on a given night, or a given play.
That was reinforced Friday, as eight different Wolves scored in the opening quarter, en route to Coupeville claiming a 30-8 advantage.
The hometown squad buried five of its eight three-balls in the first eight minutes, with Hawthorne Wolfe and Caleb Meyer torching the nets twice apiece.
Darrington couldn’t win.
Sit back and the Wolves peppered the net from behind the arc.
Come out, though, and Coupeville’s speedier players slashed past the Loggers, leaving them spinning, clutching nothing but air as layups rained down.
Alex Murdy swooped under the hoop, then popped out to shred the defense, while Logan Downes carved Darrington up on a mad end-to-end rush which resulted in a three-point play the hard way.
It was a pattern which quickly repeated itself in the second frame, as this time seven Wolves shared the scoring load.
Pushing the lead all the way out to 53-14 by halftime, the only thing preventing CHS from making a run at 100 points was the presence of a running clock in the second half.
Grady Rickner put a punctuation mark on things with a resounding stuff on a Darrington shot, while both of Coupeville’s Logan’s — Downes and Martin — added late three-balls.
Grady Rickner played strongly on both ends of the floor for the Wolves.
Nine of 10 Wolves scored in the game, and Dominic Coffman — the one who didn’t — played strongly on defense, hauling in rebounds and flustering Darrington’s shooters.
Downes paced Coupeville with a game-high 14 points, and officially became the highest-scoring of Angie and Ralph’s sons.
Three games into his sophomore season, the sharp-shooting Logan has 90 career varsity points.
That pushes him ahead of graduated big brothers Hunter (89) and Sage (64), who made much of their fame on the defensive side of the ball.
Alex Murdy and Wolfe both popped for 12 points Friday, with Wolfe (708) now the 20th player in the 105-year history of CHS boys basketball to record 700 career points.
Meyer (8), Martin (7), Rickner (7), Jonathan Valenzuela (6), Xavier Murdy (5), and Cole White (4) also scored, with X-Man notching his 250th career point.
No JV action:
Darrington has no second team, so the Wolf JV remained in street clothes Friday night.
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