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Posts Tagged ‘Boys Basketball’

Sweep city for red-hot Wolves

Posted in Boys Basketball, Middle School, tagged , , , , on December 8, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Jacob Lujan clamps down on defense. (Julie Wheat photos)

The Wolves swept the Turks right out of town.

Playing in their next-to-last set of games Monday, the Coupeville Middle School boys’ basketball squads romped to three wins in as many games against visiting Sultan, dominating for a solid three-hours-plus.

The CMS boys wrap their season next Monday, Dec. 15, with a home rumble against South Whidbey, but first, they’ll have some time to pause and reflect on a set of stellar performances.

How the day played out:

 

Level 1:

The final score doesn’t tell the true tale.

While the scorebook will tell you Coupeville beat Sultan 49-40, the Wolves were actually up 49-26 midway through the fourth quarter when they cleared the bench.

And while the feisty Turks took advantage to make a late run, there was never any doubt CMS would walk off with a bit of revenge for a loss at Sultan way back in the season opener.

Now 3-4 on the campaign, Coupeville’s top team has won three of its last four and is clicking on both ends of the floor.

That was evident Monday, as the Wolves bolted out to a 17-8 lead after one quarter of play, and never looked back.

River Simpson, Diesel Eck, and Kamden Ratcliff took turns setting the net on fire, while birthday boy Gracen Joiner skied high to deliver an impressive blocked shot which set off the Wolf faithful.

With the Wolf defense clamping down on the Turks, Coupeville got out and ran, pushing the pace and catching Sultan napping several times.

Simpson was very effective in the early minutes, drilling a runner, swishing a pullup jumper in traffic, then tossing a three-ball through the bottom of the net with a quick flick of his wrist.

When the Turks tried to stem his scoring, the Wolf 8th grader fired off passes to his teammates, who continued the destruction.

Eck hit three buckets in the first frame, with two of those coming off of offensive rebounds, while Ratcliff kicked off a perfect run for the Wolves at the free throw line, before pilfering the ball and streaking away for a layup.

Coupeville notched all six of its charity shots in the game, with Ratcliff, Simpson, and Trey Stewart each draining both of their chances.

Sultan hung tough, slicing a point off the lead to get back within 27-19 at the half, but could make little inroads overall, as both Eck and Xander Beaman came up big with blocked shots, while Trey Stewart was flying end-to-end for gorgeous breakaway buckets.

The Wolves busted the game wide open in the third, opening with an 8-0 run sparked by Eck channeling a young Shaquille O’Neal in the paint, before Aiden Wheat capped the quarter with a textbook perfect play.

Snagging a long offensive rebound, he immediately rolled ever so slightly to his right, went airborne again, and drained a jump shot from the side to put an exclamation point on things.

Six more points in a row to open the fourth staked CMS to its biggest lead at 49-26, before head coach Alex Evans made sure to get his supporting crew some solid minutes on the floor.

Coupeville’s attack was led by Eck, who banged away for 18 points, while Simpson added 13, and Trey Stewart banked in 12.

Ratcliff (4) and Wheat (2) rounded out the scorers, with Beaman, Colton Ashby, Joiner, Darius Stewart, and Jacob Lujan all chipping in with hard work on defense.

Aiden Wheat (far left), Trey Stewart (1), and Co. celebrate in an earlier game.

 

Level 2:

Coupeville’s hottest team made it five wins in a row, romping to a 47-17 rout to get to 6-1 on the season.

Five different Wolves scored in the first quarter as CMS built a 9-2 lead, with Coupeville big man Les Queen swatting shots left and right as he prevented Sultan from getting any kind of shooting rhythm going.

While the Turks did hang tough for a few moments, crawling back within 11-8 midway through the second, that was when RayLynn Ratcliff’s squad flipped the switch.

Coupeville ended the half on a 12-0 tear, with Queen scoring eight and Braxten Ratcliff and Brady Sherman swishing sweet jumpers, then kept the pedal through the metal after halftime.

Braxten Ratcliff went off on a scoring binge to open the third, rattling the rim for the first seven points of the half, while the Wolf defenders hit the board with a savage intensity.

Queen finished with a game-high 18 points, outscoring Sultan by himself, while Ratcliff notched 12 while playing in perhaps the brightest pair of pink basketball shoes ever seen on a Cow Town court.

Xander Flowers (6), Brayden Grinstead (3), Hayden Maynes (2), Abel O’Neil (2), Sherman (2), and Nico Strong (2) also scored, with Mario Martinez and Henry Purdue seeing floor time for the Wolves.

Hayden Maynes dares you to try and drive. 

 

Level 3:

The only game in which the Wolves trailed, but just for a hot second.

Down 4-2, Jaylen Nitta’s team rallied quickly, then poured it on to capture a 37-13 victory which lifts them to 2-4 on the season.

Luke Blas opened the scoring for Coupeville with a twirling jumper, while Logan Flowers and LJ Schultz banged home back-to-back buckets to send CMS to the first break holding an 11-6 lead.

Once again, the offense was sparked by scrappy play on defense, with Burke Winger rejecting a Sultan shot, and Logan Dees hitting the floor to battle for loose balls.

The Wolves shoved the lead all the way out to 21-6 late in the second quarter, with Flowers capping a personal run of seven straight points by draining a three-ball set up by a pinpoint pass from Blas.

Coming out of halftime, the Wolves got creative, running multiple lob plays, with Blas and Gabe Reed slipping past the defense, hauling in high, arcing passes, and ringing up points with twisting layups.

While the offensive attack slowed down a bit in the fourth quarter, with the two teams combining for just five points, the defensive intensity only ratcheted up.

Vincent Alguire and Winger kept the glass spotless, hauling down rebounds on a regular basis, while Oliver Miller was a rampaging madman (in a good way), frequently disrupting passes and poking balls free to keep the Turks from getting shots off.

Logan Flowers paced the Wolves in scoring, popping the nets for a season-high 16 points, while Blas (8), Schultz (6), Reed (4), and Dreyke Mendiola (3) also kept the scorebook keeper busy.

Miller, Logan Dees, Jon Driscoll, Alguire, Dom Durbin, Jack Bailey, Winger, and Gabe Ketterling rounded out the roster.

Logan Flowers busts through the defense.

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Not all losses are the same

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , on December 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Aiden O’Neill slashes to the hoop. (Julie Wheat photo)

Three games into a new season, the Coupeville High School varsity boys’ basketball team is still looking for its first victory.

But Saturday’s razor-thin 45-43 non-conference defeat to visiting Eastside Prep, a game which literally hung in the balance until the final tenth of a second, was a big step forward for the Wolves.

Coupeville, which hasn’t had its complete roster together at any point yet, in games or practices, is learning under duress, but getting tougher each time out.

Saturday was proof of that, as Brad Sherman’s 2B squad weathered an early run by a 1A team that was quick on the floor, and quick to complain, with the Cow Town hoops stars putting themselves into position to win or force overtime on the game’s final play.

And while that final shot — on which Chase Anderson had to sprint from one end of the floor to the other as the final four seconds flew off the clock — failed to drop, it still provided a final jolt of electricity to warm the cold weekend gym.

Eastside Prep, coming off a narrow loss to South Whidbey the night before, came to town riled up.

The Eagles were quick, they were occasionally dynamic, and their GQ-looking coaches filled up the air with enough complaints you might have thought they were auditioning for gigs with old-school Wolf private school rivals like King’s or Archbishop Thomas Murphy.

Up 10-2 in the early going, the whining was academic at first, then got pronouncedly more frequent as Coupeville suddenly started blowing up Eastside’s plans.

Anderson came up from beneath the hoop to split two defenders for a bucket, then fired a long outlet pass to a rampaging Camden Glover for a breakaway, and the rally was underway.

Coupeville closed the first quarter with seven straight points, the final two on a pullup jumper by Glover right in the face of his defender, before opening the second with back-to-back buckets.

In front 13-10 after the surge, which also featured some rough ‘n tumble defense from Mahkai Myles, Liam Blas, Davin Houston, and Glover, CHS showed it wouldn’t back down easy.

Neither would Eastside, however, as the Eagles combined slashing guards with a burly lumberjack-style dude clogging up the paint to battle the Wolves bucket for bucket.

Camden Glover delivered a standout performance on both ends of the floor Saturday afternoon. (Photo courtesy Stevie Glover)

Glover, who is a bit of a beast down low himself, showed off some surprisingly fleet feet, chasing down a runaway Eagle from behind and belting his would-be shot off the back wall of the gym, setting off his fan club of devoted lil’ kids.

While Eastside clung to a 21-18 lead at the half, the Wolves went ahead 22-21 shortly into the third, only to have the Eagles bounce back with a 7-0 run.

From there, it was two teams standing in the middle of the floor, whaling on each other, waiting to see who would buckle first. Answer: neither of them.

Glover and running mate Aiden O’Neill both rippled the net on three-balls, as the Wolves fought back from seven down early in the fourth to tie things up at 42-42 in the waning moments.

That set up a final 30 seconds that had passion, gusto, and, unfortunately, one big shot from Eastside Prep’s lumberjack, Vlad Guz, as he crashed into the paint for a back-breaking layup delivered through a forest of arms.

A free throw got Coupeville back within 44-43, but an Eagle freebie made it 45-43.

When Eastside’s second charity shot slid off the rim, the Wolves snatched the rebound, but had no timeouts left, forcing Anderson to try and go the length of the floor while being hacked every step of the way.

An unbalanced shot, thrown up on a dead run, came tantalizingly close, but there would be no miracles on this day.

Tomorrow, possibly, but not today.

Playing his second game of the season after missing the opener with injuries, Anderson tossed in a game-high 22 points.

That carries the Wolf senior to 638 points and moves him from #32 to #29 on the CHS boys’ basketball career scoring chart, which covers 109 seasons.

Anderson passed all-timers Wiley Hesselgrave (632), Kramer O’Keefe (636), and Rich Morris (637) Saturday, while Glover, who went for 12, raised his own career total to 139 points — passing Wolf JV coach (and Chase’s dad) Craig Anderson (132) on the list.

Myles (4), O’Neill (3), and Sage Arends (2) rounded out the scorers, with Blas, Riley Lawless, Houston, and Easton Green also seeing floor time for the Wolves.

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Coxsey, Stockdale spark rising stars

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , , on December 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Nathan Coxsey, seen here during football season, is now rampaging on the hardwood. (Photo courtesy Erin Coxsey)

The basket got stingy at just the wrong moment.

Up by six points on visiting Eastside Prep late in the fourth quarter Saturday, the Coupeville High School JV boys’ basketball squad suddenly ran out of buckets when it needed them most, letting the Eagles slip away with a 33-29 victory.

The non-conference loss drops the Wolves to 1-2 on the season, with another home bout, this one against East Jefferson, set for Tuesday night.

After a back-and-forth first half, Coupeville seemingly seized control of the game after the halftime break.

Trailing 14-10 heading into the third quarter, the Wolves opened with an 8-0 surge, thanks to four different players putting their names in the scorebook.

Nathan Coxsey drained a pair of free throws, Josh Stockdale went coast-to-coast for a layup, Chris Zenz put a rebound back up and in, and Carson Grove swooped past the defense for a sweet runner, and CHS was living large.

Eventually holding on to a 20-16 lead at the end of three, Coupeville continued to clamp down on defense, led by a fired-up Khanor Jump, who cleaned the boards with a fury.

Two more buckets from Stockdale and one from Coxsey staked the Wolves to a 26-20 advantage, and Eastside Prep was beginning to get desperate.

Unfortunately for the local fans, the off-Islanders suddenly found their groove, hitting a pair of three-balls, after missing approximately 11,407 prior long-range heaves, and closed the game on a 13-3 tear.

Down the stretch, CHS got free throws from Jump and Liam Lawson, but couldn’t get a field goal to drop across the game’s final four minutes and change.

The furious finish capped a game which started as a fairly low-scoring, defense-orientated affair.

Eastside Prep clung to a 5-4 lead after one quarter of action, with both of Coupeville’s buckets coming from Coxsey and set up by strong passes off the fingertips of Carson Grove.

Coxsey and Stockdale eventually pushed CHS ahead, but the visitors closed the half with a 7-2 mini-run to reclaim the lead and set up the second-half theatrics.

Ten Wolves saw floor time, with six of them scoring, led by Coxsey, who dropped in a season-high 12 points.

Stockdale (8), Grove (4), Jump (2), Zenz (2), and Lawson (1) also scored, with Brian Thompson, Trent Thule, Ayden Warren, and Jaden Flores Garcia rounding out the active roster.

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Sweet swishes, plenty of points

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

CMS 8th grader Diesel Eck leads all Wolves in scoring. (Julie Wheat photos)

Numbers make the world go round.

Well, at least they do when you’re writing stat stories, such as this one focusing on the Coupeville Middle School boys’ basketball teams.

The Wolves are six games into their eight-game season, with home rumbles against Sultan and South Whidbey set for Dec. 8 and 15, respectively.

Those final two bouts on the hardwood will dictate who leads the way in the scoring column, as the race for top dog remains a close one.

So far, 31 different Wolves have slipped at least one shot through the net, combining for 562 points.

 

Where things stand as of Dec. 5:

Diesel Eck – 76
Kamden Ratcliff – 64
Les Queen – 53
River Simpson – 46
Braxten Ratcliff – 40
Trey Stewart – 32
Xander Flowers – 26
Gracen Joiner – 26
Dreyke Mendiola – 22
Brady Sherman – 22
Nico Strong – 20
Luke Blas – 19
Liam Stoner – 18
Abel O’Neil – 16
Logan Flowers – 12
Alton Hansen – 10
Henry Purdue – 10
Jack Bailey – 6
Logan Dees – 6
Gabe Reed – 6
Hayden Maynes – 5
LJ Schultz – 5
Xander Beaman – 4
Mica McCloskey – 4
Mario Martinez – 3
Jon Driscoll – 2
Brayden Grinstead – 2
Darius Stewart – 2
Maverick Walling – 2
Aiden Wheat – 2
Colton Ashby – 1

Gracen Joiner (second from right) is mobbed after hitting a buzzer-beater.

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It was a wild night in the ol’ Cow Town

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , , on December 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Carson Grove, seen here last season, rained down 11 points in a wild one Thursday night. (Parker Hammons photo)

You don’t see that every day.

Playing in prime-time Thursday, the Coupeville High School JV boys’ basketball team hooked up with visiting Forks in a raucous rumble which featured … deep breath …

A full-scale, punches-thrown fight which crashed into the scorer’s table and revived memories of the rough-and-tumble world of 1990’s high school hoops.

One team accidentally scoring for the other.

A ref spending more time getting sassy, lecturing assistant coaches on both benches, than he did in stopping said fight, coming to a skidding stop and staying well out of range of the fisticuffs.

The Wolves rallying from 15 down.

The game coming down to the final millisecond, ending with a 37-36 win for Forks and a dismissive hand wave from the conflict-averse official as he fled the gym, likely ankling for a warm cup of tea to calm his frazzled nerves.

So, basically, as one coach said, “The most JV of all JV games.”

The second units went second for once, with the varsity playing first, in case Forks had to leave early to catch a ferry and return to their far-away land of rain and gloom.

They did not, which was just as well, since the JV game delivered more than its share of plot twists, eyebrow raisers, and WTF moments.

In the beginning, it was all Forks, all the time, as the Spartans built a 10-2 lead after one quarter, then stretched the advantage out to 19-4 midway through the second after banking in a three-ball that was shot from somewhere down around the ferry dock.

The Wolves were struggling but finally got the spark they seemed to need thanks to a Forks player losing his mind.

It started simple and ended complex.

A Coupeville player lobbed a pass over the soon-to-go-nuclear Spartan in the far corner, then headed back up court. There was the briefest of ticky-tacky collisions.

However, moments later, the Forks player charged down half the length of the floor and, arms swinging, launched an attack, with the Wolf defending himself and winning on the scorecard.

Personally, it reminded me of a game in 1993 when an Oak Harbor girl slugged a particularly obnoxious Everett rival, and the night ended with local police escorting a bus out of town.

It was a different time, certainly, highlighted by the refs back then actually jumping into the fray.

Thursday there were three officials on the floor, yet only one attempted to physically stop the fight, as the other two went into a full retreat, leaving coaches to bring things to an end.

For a moment, it seemed like the game might be called on the spot, but then, other than the two players being ejected, everyone basically looked the other way and pretended none of it just happened.

Things continued to be a bit rough-and-tumble from there, but the focus quickly shifted from cheap shots to made shots.

Coupeville closed the first half on an 8-0 … well, we can’t exactly call it a run when six of those points came via free throws … but it changed the tone of things.

Back within 19-12 at the half, the Wolves got the deficit down to five in the third, watched it creep back up to nine, then put together a charge to take control for a bit.

Three-balls from Carson Grove, Trent Thule, and Liam Lawson fired up the scoreboard operator, while Khanor Jump and Josh Stockdale rampaged on defense.

And then in the middle of a particularly frantic scramble, Forks forgot which basket it was trying to score on, with a Spartan knocking down a pretty, pretty layup … on the basket he was supposed to be defending.

The gift bucket gave Coupeville its first lead of the game, and the Wolves went to the bench at the end of the third up 32-30.

But after combining for 31 points in the third quarter, the two teams rattled the rims for just 11 more in the fourth.

Grove rolled past his defender and popped a short jumper to knot things up at 35-35, before Jump nailed a free throw to cap the scoring, but Forks made off with one last bucket in the paint in between those two events to set the final score.

Coupeville had a chance to steal the game at the end, but the clock ran out on them, evening its early season record at 1-1.

Grove had the hot hand, popping for a team-high 11 points, while Stockdale (9), Lawson (5), Jump (3), Thule (3), Ayden Warren (2), and Brian Thompson (1) also scored, with Jayden McManus, Chris Zenz, and Nathan Coxsey seeing floor time for the Wolves.

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