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Posts Tagged ‘brawl’

You say you want a war?!!

Posted in Athlete Supreme, tagged , , , , on May 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   25 CHS athletes (16 seniors, five juniors, three sophomores and one freshman) enter the arena and one emerges Monday as the 2018 Athlete Supreme.

It’s time for everyone to get a little mad.

That crackle of energy you feel in the air, the sense that my page hit numbers are about to explode, that certainty that someone, somewhere, will pitch a fit about a contest with no rules, it’s all here.

Welcome to the 6th annual battle royal for the Coupeville Sports Athlete Supreme.

In which the winner gets absolutely nothing but a warm glow in their chest.

Anyway, for those new to May’s most polarizing event, here’s a breakdown.

I nominate 25 Coupeville High School athletes, you get 100 hours to vote, with no rules or restrictions, and then we declare a winner.

Simple, yet sure to drive people insane.

The previous winners, in case you’ve forgotten:

2013 – Nick Streubel
2014 – Amanda Fabrizi
2015 – CJ Smith
2016 – Hunter Smith
2017 – Joey Lippo

How did I come up with this year’s nominees?

There’s one hard and fast rule – you must have made a SIZABLE impact on TWO VARSITY teams at CHS during the 2017-2018 school year.

With much respect to Derek and Aram Leyva (soccer), Veronica Crownover (softball), Jacob Smith (track), Ashley Menges (volleyball) and other one-sport standouts, you’re stars, you’re just not eligible for my fake award.

And yes, the final cut-down from 30 to 25 was brutal, and yes, I once again threatened to punch myself during the heated argument.

Anyway, on to the poll itself.

Voting starts 9 AM Thursday, May 10 and closes 1 PM Monday, May 14.

Vote as many times as your lil’ heart desires. There are no restrictions, no caps, no cool-down periods — at least from me.

Welcome to Thunderdome.

 

Your nominees (in alphabetic order):

Payton Aparicio (SR) — Team MVP in volleyball, set school single-game record for service aces; team captain in tennis, won third straight league doubles crown.

Kyla Briscoe (SR) — Led volleyball in kills, lock-down defensive ace who hit her share of big buckets in basketball.

Danny Conlisk (JR) — First CHS cross country runner to advance to state since 2010; well on his way to returning to state in track for third straight season.

Hunter Downes (SR) — Broke school career records as a QB, led basketball team in rebounding, key defender on soccer team which won first playoff game in six years.

Mikayla Elfrank (SR) — Ferocious hitter in volleyball who almost killed a girl with a spike to the face; #1 scorer in basketball until an injury.

Matt Hilborn (JR) — Two-way star in football, one of the top pitchers and hitters on a baseball team which rolled to a league title.

Jake Hoagland (SR) — Solid contributor in football and baseball who was on receiving end of strike from Downes which broke school career TD passes record.

Mallory Kortuem (SO) — Key defender on soccer squad, standout track star in multiple events who shattered school record in pole vault.

Joey Lippo (SR) — Front-line player on three teams (tennis, basketball, baseball) and a league champ in tennis.

Hope Lodell (SR) — Olympic League MVP in volleyball, where Wolves won all 27 sets played; four-year starter in softball, where she’s a defensive demon in center.

Katrina McGranahan (SR) — Killer at the net and killer at the service stripe for a volleyball team which went to state for first time since 2004; rolling towards a second-straight Olympic League MVP award in softball.

William Nelson (SR) — League champ in tennis, captain (and #3 scorer) on boys soccer squad which destroyed five-time state champ Bellevue Christian in playoff opener.

Sage Renninger (SR) — Ever-steady captain in soccer and tennis; won third-straight league doubles title in tennis.

Lindsey Roberts (JR) — Top defender in soccer (who also can score from distance), #1 scorer and rebounder in basketball, on her way to winning the most state track medals of any girl in CHS history. 

Kyle Rockwell (SR) — Had a season-defining play in three sports. Forced and recovered fumble in football finale, had rebound and put-back to deny Klahowya basketball title and threw out runner at the plate to end game and propel baseball to league crown. 

Lauren Rose (SR) — Team spark-plug in volleyball and softball who capped an amazing four-year athletic run by leading both her squads to league titles.

Emma Smith (JR) — Among team leaders in kills and blocks for volleyball team; emerged as track team’s top thrower, where she’s headed to districts in shot put and discus.

Hunter Smith (SR) — Owns seven CHS football records, finished as 12th highest career scorer in boys basketball history, stone-cold lock for Olympic League MVP in baseball.

Scout Smith (SO) — Major contributor in three sports (volleyball, basketball, softball) who is battling for the team lead in hits as diamond season unfolds.

Ethan Spark (SR) — Deadly three-point marksman and #2 scorer during basketball season, captain on the soccer squad. 

Cameron Toomey-Stout (SR) — From a kid who wasn’t 100 pounds as a freshman, finished career as one of Coupeville’s best receivers/defensive backs, ever. Brought insane energy to basketball, currently running towards first trip to state in track and field.

Sean Toomey-Stout (SO) — A beast in the first half of football, among state leaders in tackles and Coupeville’s #1 rusher until an injury. Returned to crush people in track and field alongside siblings.

Julian Welling (SR) — Anchored both lines in football, among team leaders in baseball in RBIs, average, intentional walks and being plunked.

Genna Wright (FR) — Shattered CHS girls soccer single-season record for most goals by a freshman, then picked up a tennis racket for first time and rose to #1 singles by postseason.

Sarah Wright (JR) — Starting goalie in soccer, force in the paint in basketball, superstar in softball, where she leads team in almost every offensive category and is vocal team leader.

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“That was exciting to see!!”

Posted in Volleyball, tagged , , , , on October 10, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Wolf senior Kyla Briscoe pounded a season-high 12 kills Tuesday against Sequim. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

As losses go, this one doesn’t sting too badly.

The Coupeville High School volleyball squad went toe-to-toe, and kill-to-kill, with an aggressive, big-hitting squad from 2A Sequim Tuesday, and essentially played them to a standstill.

While the 1A Wolves came up on the short end of the count in a 25-22, 17-25, 26-24, 25-21 non-conference tilt, if you take out the sets format, the final score was a razor-thin 93-92.

Coupeville drops to 7-2 on the season, but gets a huge jolt of confidence heading into the stretch run.

Sitting at 4-0 in Olympic League play, the Wolves, who are gunning for a second-straight conference crown, kick off their final five regular-season matches Oct. 17 with a trip to Klahowya.

The lessons learned under fire Tuesday will be a huge bonus going forward.

“We played pretty darn well,” said CHS coach Cory Whitmore. “When you play as cleanly as we did, you can leave the court proud.”

The Wolves are working on finding a solid mix between knowing when “to be risky and when to be smart,” and their coach liked what he saw against a Sequim team which made very few errors and constantly pushed the attack.

“We worked together to find the openings and take advantage when they were there,” Whitmore said. “We rode the peaks and valleys and showed a lot of maturity, which you hope for with a team which has so many seniors.”

One of those veterans, Kyla Briscoe, was a particular standout, flying in from the outside to pound away for a season-high 12 kills and a super-high hitting percentage, especially with how many chances she had during a long, conflict-heavy match.

“I’m really, really proud of how Kyla played,” Whitmore said. “That was exciting to see.”

The spiker guru was thrilled with how his big hitters continued to attack, while also weathering the assault waged by Sequim’s sturdy snipers.

Emma Smith, Katrina McGranahan and Payton Aparicio collected five kills apiece, while Mikayla Elfrank chipped in with four, each one of which tore up a chunk of the floor.

Coupeville showed little fear, attacking from the first point until the last in a match filled with long, intense rallies.

While there were service aces, far more often points raged on, with both sides digging deep for unexpected saves on balls which looked like sure winners.

With so many big plays, it might be hard to pick just two as the defining moments, but, call me foolhardy, cause that’s just what I’m about to do.

For Sequim, it was a double-whammy, winning a point as Coupeville prematurely celebrated.

Thinking a point was over (the ref had already started to signal it so), the Wolves converged for a group yell, only to be thrown for a loop as the ball suddenly plopped over the net behind their backs.

Against all odds, and defying the laws of nature, a visiting spiker had somehow scraped the ball off the floor at the last second, flicking it skywards, where it awkwardly rattled off various body parts of two teammates and crawled, by the smallest of margins, up and over the tape.

Six sets of cheeks turned red, but the Wolves rebounded, and, in between a hail of knee-shredding kills, setter Ashley Menges had the sneakiest winner of the year.

Deep in the fourth set, she went to launch a set, and did it so convincingly every player on the court, including the CHS hitter expecting to blast the ball, bought the fake.

Instead, at the very last millisecond, betrayed only by a slight sideways shift of her eyes, Menges, hanging in mid-air, flicked her fingers downward and not upward, shooting a tip over the net.

The next sound you heard was the collective brains of 11 other players melting, as the ball softly landed in a small opening and skipped away for a winner.

And then Menges strolled away like a stone-cold killer, epic grin in place as everyone, including her own teammates, tried to collect their jaws off the ground.

If she had whipped out a mustache and twirled it while unleashing a super-villain-taking-over-the-world laugh, no one could have faulted her.

Whitmore and assistant coaches Chris Smith and Ashley Herndon, for their part, came unglued, as all three came dangerously close to storming the court and carrying Menges off on their shoulders.

Coupeville put together a fairly substantial highlight reel on the evening, with Elfrank and McGranahan peppering the back-line with their sizzlin’ put-aways and Hope Lodell and Aparicio digging kill shot after kill shot off the floor.

Emma Smith, the elegant assassin whose on-court work invokes memories of her aunt, former all-world Wolf spiker Joli Smith, was everywhere and nowhere at once.

She painted with all the colors, using her long reach to snuff a spike, dropping a floater between rival players, then bashing a ball that tore chunks of paint off the end-line.

Rising star Scout Smith might give up several inches to Emma Smith, but she’s quickly rising to meet the big-play challenge set by her older teammate.

The Slammin’ Smiths combined for three of Coupeville’s seven blocks on the night, while Scout went airborne for a winner on a running tip that was so pretty mom Charlotte will gnash her teeth when she finds out she missed seeing it live.

With her teammates attacking from all sides, set up by a ton of assists from Lauren Rose (18) and Menges (13), Briscoe was set free to be the final word and she delivered.

Lashing frozen ropes, she launched three straight winners at one point late in the match, setting off the Wolf student section, which serenaded her with a continuous howl.

For their part, the rival Sequim players just shook their heads, took several steps back and prayed Briscoe wouldn’t hurt them too badly.

There were no guarantees.

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