The Three Amigo celebrate. May Rose (14) and Bree Daigneault both scored Saturday, while Wolf volleyball star Ally Roberts was there to root her buddies on. (Mimi Rose photo)
Taichen Rose teams with older sister May to form the Rose & Rose Wrecking Crew. (John Fisken photo)
Not bad. Not bad at all.
Facing off Saturday with two-time defending 1B/2B state soccer champs Crosspoint Academy, the public school kids more than held their own.
Riding goals from May Rose, Bree Daigneault and Jenn Spark, the Coupeville High School girls’ soccer squad came within a whisker of an upset, before being nipped 4-3.
“The match was epic and the girls are learning to ratchet up their level of intensity to match and surpass their opponent,” said CHS coach Troy Cowan. “Each match we get faster, stronger and better prepared for our impending conference matches.”
The non-conference loss dropped the Wolves to 2-3-3 on the season, while Crosspoint won its fourth straight.
Coupeville will now have 10 days to tweak all the small things, as it’s off until a non-conference game at La Conner Oct. 13.
Two days after that, the Wolves kick off the first of six straight 1A Olympic League matches, which will decide the squad’s postseason fate.
Saturday, facing a school it lost to 7-1 last year, Coupeville clamped down on both sides of the ball.
Crosspoint had outscored its last three opponents 27-1, with nine goals in each of those games, but the Wolf defense held them to less than half of that per-game average.
While Spark is the rock for the Wolf defense, her fellow defenders all stepped up big.
One young gun drew big-time praise from her coach, for her play on the afternoon and all season.
“How impressed I have been with one of my players of late. She is the hardest-working player on the pitch, never complains, gives me and her teammates 100% every second on the pitch and does it with a smile on her face,” Cowan said. “She has grown leaps and bounds from her freshman year to yesterday. She is gritty, tough-minded and passionate!
“Taichen Rose has left an indelible mark on me and demonstrated the true spirit of sportsmanship and the results of possessing a positive perspective.”
And, when the Wolves had their chances on offense, they took full advantage, and not always from the expected gunners.
Kalia Littlejohn, who entered with seven goals in seven games, was held scoreless, but set up Daigneault for her second goal of the season.
Spark crushed home her third score of the season, with a little help from an opposing player.
The senior with the golden leg let loose with a corner kick that curled at the last second, then exploded off of a Crosspoint defender’s noggin and into the corner of the net.
Wrapping up Coupeville’s scoring burst was May Rose, as the junior hit pay-dirt after being set up by Mia Littlejohn.
One of the most unsung Wolves, the always-hard working older sister in the Rose & Rose Wrecking Crew was sky-high afterwards.
Especially with one of her best friends, Daigneault, also scoring, while the third of the Three Amigos, CHS spiker Ally Roberts, screamed her approval from the sidelines.
“I know what it feels like to cry when you’re over emotionally happy now,” Rose posted on Twitter in the afterglow of her big moment.
To her, and all of her Wolf teammates, who never broke, and barely yielded, in the face of a true powerhouse, job well done, ladies.
Coupeville Sports 