Ethan Spark scored a game-high 21 Friday, netting five three-point bombs in a Wolf win. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
“They want it pretty bad.”
As he basked in the glow of his first win as a varsity basketball coach Friday, Brad Sherman wanted to make one thing clear — in his eyes, all the credit goes to his players.
Having inherited a senior-heavy roster, the former Coupeville High School hoops star has unleashed the current Wolves on defense, and it’s paying immediate dividends.
Harassing visiting Mount Vernon Christian every inch of the floor, CHS turned a close game into a rout in the second half, then coasted home with a 49-37 win.
The non-conference victory evens Coupeville’s record at 1-1.
The Wolves got strong offensive work from Ethan Spark and Hunter Smith, who combined to score 41 of their team’s 49 points, but it was defense which turned the tide in this one.
The kind of defense where it looked like five rabid dogs attacking as one, poking passes, rejecting shots, forcing turnovers and mental errors and being a royal pain in the tush to anyone unlucky enough to be wearing a Hurricanes uniform.
“I really liked our intensity on defense,” Sherman said. “We were flying all over the place, applying ball pressure and closing down the passing lanes, just making it very hard for the other team to run any kind of offense.”
Coupeville’s starting five – Smith, Spark, Cameron Toomey-Stout, Joey Lippo and Hunter Downes – are all seniors, and have yet to see a Wolf boys hoops squad post a winning record during their tenure.
Friday night, those recent struggles seemed far away, though, as the Wolves fed off a boisterous crowd, and vice versa.
There were times, with the joint rocking, where the excitement level hit the kind of highs it did back when Sherman and his classmates were soaring to success in the early 2000’s.
Whether it was Lippo rising up to reject a shot, Downes swinging his elbows while rebounding, begging any fool to get too close, or Spark making off with steals, the Wolves were in shut-down mode.
And that was most evident when Smith and Toomey-Stout, All-Conference defensive backs on the football fields, continually broke up passes in mid-sprint.
Even when they didn’t get an outright steal, balls were repeatedly jarred free and MVC, which had a distinct height advantage, got more and more gun shy and frustrated.
Adding to their intensity on defense, the Wolves chose the right moment to showcase their offensive attack, closing each of the first three quarters with a substantial run.
The first came after Coupeville fell behind 6-1 midway through the first quarter.
Mixing four free throws — two each from Smith and Spark — and a pair of buckets, Coupeville closed the period on an 8-2 tear, grabbing its first lead with less than a tick on the clock.
The go-ahead bucket came courtesy Lippo, who ripped a rebound free from a Hurricane, spun and rose up to swish a sweet fall-away jumper that tickled the twine with 0:00.3 to play.
The two teams traded baskets to kick off the second quarter, with MVC taking its final lead of the night at 16-14.
After that, the final three minutes of the half were a thing of beauty (if you were a CHS fan, at least).
Smith hung in the air for an impossible amount of time before hitting a jumper on his way down, before Spark … um … lit the spark with the first of what would be five three-point bombs.
Just to make sure MVC knew the jig was up, Smith rattled home his own three-ball, and, as it splatted through the net, he became only the 42nd male Wolf player (in 101 years) to reach 500 career points.
But, wait, there’s more!
Dribbling out the final seconds of the half, Smith sucked in all five defenders, who were dead certain he was driving to the hoop.
Instead, he whistled a pass right onto the fingertips of junior Dane Lucero, who banged home the quarter-capping layup for his first-ever varsity points.
If MVC went into the locker room still holding out hope, with the margin just 24-18, that vanished, hard, in the third.
Spark, who earned praise from his coach for his off-season dedication to working on his shooting, went ballistic, raining down three consecutive treys, each shot getting deeper and deeper into the darkest corner of the court.
As each ball hit, flipping the net skyward with a happy little sigh, the crowd, which has been somewhat dormant at times in recent years, went progressively more berserk.
The loudest scream might have come for two boom-boom plays to cap the third.
Downes and Smith, who combined for many a touchdown as quarterback and receiver, connected again, with Downes yanking a ball free, then lofting it three-quarters of the court.
His target caught it in perfect stride, flipped it up for a layup … then promptly stole the in-bounds pass and scored again.
With everything clicking, Coupeville stretched the lead out to as many as 18 points twice, the final one coming at 47-29 when sophomore Jacobi Pacquette-Pilgrim netted a free throw for his first varsity point.
While an 8-2 MVC run to close the game tightened the score just a bit, the Hurricanes left the court heads bowed, looking very much like a team which just got bushwhacked.
For Coupeville’s players, and its fans, the early-season win set off a celebration, and, for Sherman, a never-ending string of congratulatory handshakes.
Spark finished with 21 to pace the Wolves, while Smith popped for 20.
With 509 career points, he passed Jason Bagby (499) and David Lortz (502) Friday to move into 41st on the all-time CHS boys hoops scoring list.
Downes chipped in with three, Lippo and Lucero knocked down buckets and Pacquette-Pilgrim’s free throw capped the scoring.
While Coupeville’s seniors led the attack, sophomores Jered Brown and Gavin Knoblich also saw valuable floor time.
The Wolves now get a week to rest up, not returning to action until Friday, Dec. 8, when Sequim comes to town.
