TJ Rickner was one of nine players to score Monday as Coupeville’s JV whacked Cedar Park Christian. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
They could have bent. They could have broke. They could have lost.
But they did none of those things.
Closing with fury and passion, the Coupeville High School boys JV basketball squad stepped back from the abyss Monday, then smacked the crud out of visiting Cedar Park Christian.
They might have lost a fourth quarter lead, but they never lost their heads, or their shooting touch, and the Wolves exited the floor with a very-satisfying 61-53 win.
The fourth-straight victiory for Coupeville, it lifts them to a flawless 4-0 in North Sound Conference action, 8-3 overall.
As sweet as the end result was, for one agonizing moment it looked like things might slip away from the Wolves.
CHS charged into the final quarter up 46-39, then watched it all go away, with Cedar Park using an 8-1 run to open the fourth and knot things up at 47-47.
The Wolves had led all the way since Sage Downes strolled through the paint and slapped home a layup to make it 8-6 in the very early going, and hadn’t surrendered the lead since that point.
And they never did.
Keeping the subtle cockiness in their walk, the Wolves looked up at the scoreboard, saw the 47-47 score, and laughed.
As quickly as the game had been tied, it was untied, with Cody Roberts popping a three-ball from the top of the arc to restore sanity and the lead.
Cedar Park got one more moment to dream about a comeback win, grabbing an offensive rebound and putting it back up and in to slice the margin to 50-49, but then Coupeville dropped the nuclear bomb.
Or bombs with an S, since there was more than one.
Many more.
Daniel Olson slipped a silky jumper through the net, Grady Rickner took a steal the length of the floor, crashing through a too-slow defender for the layup, and then it was Olson again, slicing to the hoop for another bucket.
Cedar Park had no answers for the 11-0 run which broke the game open, though the greatest agony the Eagles seemed to endure came when Logan Martin arced home a three-ball from the far left corner.
One of eight treys the Wolves knocked down, it was the final, and most heart-rending sucker punch, eliciting a small wail from the CPC coach as he turned away, not able to witness any more.
While Chris Smith’s squad closed like assassins, the Wolves played strongly all night long.
Once it had the lead, Coupeville dared Cedar Park to take it away, then, time after time, smacked them in the face, Three Stooges-style.
Holding a 13-12 lead with time running out in the first quarter, CHS got a miracle bucket from fab frosh Alex Murdy, who went airborne, then fell backwards while floating, Matrix-style, yet somehow got his shot off around a clingy defender.
The ball evaded at least three hands, kissed the top of the glass, then tumbled through the net.
Off to the side, Murdy’s uncle, former Wolf scoring sensation Allen Black, nodded ever so slightly in approval.
Which for him is like most other fans running across the court, shirtless, screaming “USA, USA, USA.”
The first quarter ended, but not the human highlight reel.
Sage Downes, who banged home four three-balls in the game, banked one in from an impossible angle, Chris Cernick converted back-to-back offensive rebounds into big buckets, then Martin got bonkers.
He went off for Coupeville’s final 10 points of the second quarter, slinging back-to-back three-balls to pay dirt before slashing inside for a couple of old-fashioned, and very-effective, two-point buckets.
“Logan’s kind of feeling it,” CHS varsity coach Brad Sherman chuckled as he walked by, and it was a feeling which spread team-wide.
Downes finished with a game-high 18, while Martin banked in 15 and Olson came alive to net seven.
Cernick (6), Grady Rickner (4), Murdy (4), Roberts (3), TJ Rickner (2), and Miles Davidson (2) also scored, while Alex Jimenez, Andrew Aparicio, and Chris Ruck all saw floor time.
