Lauren Rose, seen here in an earlier match, played with the same wild abandon in Thursday’s win over Chimacum. (John Fisken photos)
When spirited, vocal team leader Madeline Strasburg (20) is done playing, she might make a very good coach.
When the match started, there were about two fans in the stands. When it ended, it sounded like there were two hundred.
With an early 4 PM start catching a lot of Coupeville High School’s cheering section seemingly by surprise (visiting Chimacum didn’t have a single fan show up and only one extra player on its ultra-thin bench), Thursday afternoon’s Olympic League volleyball match-up kicked off in front of a nearly empty gym.
At the end, with fans having straggled in bit by bit, the joint was a little more rockin’, never more so than when the Wolves closed out a 25-20, 15-25, 25-23, 25-18 victory, their first ever under coach Breanne Smedley.
The win lifted Coupeville to 1-7 under the first-year head coach, 1-1 in league play. That’s the more important stat, as it means CHS jumped into second place in its four-team league.
Klahowya was 1-0 entering a Thursday night showdown with Port Townsend (0-1), while the Wolves and Chimacum now sit at 1-1.
The top three teams advance to the postseason and three of the Wolves’ final four league matches will be against Port Townsend and Chimacum.
Only a Oct. 27 rematch with unbeaten Klahowya (9-0), the #8 team in 1A polls, looms as a major stumbling block.
With Port Townsend up next Tuesday, Oct. 21 (it’s a home match with CHS putting on a cancer awareness night), Smedley is confident her team took a positive turn with the victory.
“This is a win they should feel really good about,” she said. “They competed well with this team and it should give some confidence and show them that they can win, that they’re capable.”
Other than a brief dry spell in the second set, the Wolves came out on fire, delivering big hits and big emotion.
At a key moment in the first set, with Coupeville clinging to a 21-20 lead, senior captain Madeline Strasburg came bounding out of a timeout, grabbing each of her teammates for a moment.
“We can do better, ladies! We can do better!!,” she said in a crisp, firm voice.
Then Strasburg proved it, winning the next point for the Wolves on a thunderous spike that shook the floor, the bleachers and, possibly, half the town.
Spurred on by her words, and her actions, Coupeville quickly put the set away on serves from Valen Trujillo that exploded with a zing, and another, just as brutal, spike off of Strasburg’s patented Arm ‘o Death.
The Wolves were the clear aggressor all match, with Strasburg, Hailey Hammer and Kacie Kiel launching laser shots.
Hammer drilled a Chimacum player in the body, but it was Strasburg (who else?) who lashed one winner off of a hapless Cowboy’s face (sort of by accident).
When it wasn’t putting the ball to the floor hard on spikes, Coupeville found myriad other ways to thwart Chimacum’s best efforts.
McKenzie Bailey and Lauren Rose dropped picture-perfect tips into open space repeatedly, while Trujillo chased down every last ball, cartwheeling end over end frequently.
The perfect punctuation came from Wolf senior Monica Vidoni, the team’s tallest player.
Timing her jump perfectly, Vidoni virtually scraped the ceiling on a play midway through the fourth set, catching the ball on her fingertips at its highest point and flicking it downwards.
Her tip knifed through a wall of Chimacum players, none of whom could catch up to it, and Vidoni was left to jump, scream and dance her way back to her teammates, who mobbed her in joy.
A complete team effort, the win had contributions from everyone, whether it was a nice, slicing winner from Kyla Briscoe, dependable work from Tiffany Briscoe or inspired late-match serving from Ally Roberts.
Springing off the bench, the irrepressible Roberts combined with Kiel to provide a one-two punch that knocked Chimacum out cold.
First Kiel smoked a winner off the back line — allowing her dad Steve, calling lines, to about jump out of his skin calling the point for CHS — then Roberts twirled an ace that caught the very farthest corner of the court.
Hammer (11 kills), Strasburg (8) and Kiel (7) shared the power display, while Trujillo went low for 26 digs and Rose dealt out 22 assists.
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