The only thing associated with Coupeville High School football which wasn’t injured this season. (David Stern photo)
The season started with great promise, only to end with great frustration.
With a roster ripped asunder by injuries, a severely-depleted Coupeville High School football team could have made a pretty good argument in favor of forfeiting its finale.
But the Wolves skipped the easy way out, pulled together what players they had left and traveled to Puyallup Saturday, where they were hammered 70-6 by a state-ranked, playoff-bound, very-healthy Cascade Christian squad.
The loss, Coupeville’s fifth straight after losing explosive two-way stars Hunter Smith and Sean Toomey-Stout, drops them to a final mark of 1-6 in Olympic/Nisqually League play, 3-7 overall.
After starting the season 2-0, with wins over South Whidbey and La Conner, CHS was flying high.
Even after tough losses to Nooksack Valley and Charles Wright Academy, both of which have qualified for the 16-team state tourney, the Wolves rebounded by thrashing Vashon.
But that night, while a romp on the scoreboard, was the beginning of the end.
Smith, the team’s leading receiver and owner of seven Wolf football records, and Toomey-Stout, the team’s leading rusher and tackler, were both lost for the season after sustaining devastating injuries.
After that, the pain never stopped coming, claiming, among others, key two-way starters Matt Hilborn, Chris Battaglia, Andrew Martin, and, in the final game, the team’s leading scorer, Cameron Toomey-Stout.
Coupeville went to Puyallup missing its top four rushers, and six of the 10 players with at least one rushing attempt, and the Cougars savaged what was left of the Wolf roster.
In a small win for the Wolves, they became only the second league team to score against Cascade Christian this season, something even Charles Wright failed to do.
Wolf quarterback Hunter Downes tossed the 35th and final touchdown pass of his career, dropping it into the hands of fellow senior Jake Hoagland to momentarily pull Coupeville to a 6-6 tie early in the first quarter.
With both teams on the board, but having missed PATs, there was the briefest thought the game might be close.
It was, though, the briefest of brief.
Cascade Christian tacked on four more touchdowns in the first quarter, with one coming off of a 53-yard bomb on the first play after the Cougars took over on downs, and the rout was officially on.
Five more TDs and a safety came in the second quarter, as the Cougar starters wrapped up their night with a 37-point second-quarter.
The biggest weapon for Cascade, as it has been all season, was Madden Tobeck, son of 14-year NFL veteran (and former Seahawk) Robbie Tobeck.
Coupeville’s depleted defense had no answer for him, or Tyquan Coleman or Parker Johnson. Or, basically for anyone in a Cougar uniform.
That job now falls to Cascade Christian’s first-round playoff foe, Nooksack Valley, and the other 14 teams gunning for a 1A state title.
For the Wolves, time to put away their pads and helmets, try and focus on the positives of the season, and, for those healthy, turn their attention to basketball.
