Wolf lineman Julian Welling cleared room for his QB, Hunter Downes, on a short TD run Friday night. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
“I’ve never seen anything like this.”
As Coupeville High School football coach Jon Atkins uttered those words in the aftermath of a 34-12 loss to visiting Klahowya Friday night, they were said not with anger, or wonder, but instead resignation tinged with a bit of muted anguish.
He wasn’t talking about the loss, however, even if it dropped the Wolves to 1-4 in Olympic League play, 3-5 overall.
What was on his mind, and the minds of virtually everyone in Wolf Nation, was whether his team will have enough bodies to finish its season.
Football teams live by the rule “next man up,” but when you’re a small school and your opening day roster was already thin at its fullest, a wave of injuries can be devastating.
Welcome to Coupeville’s season of pain.
The Wolves lost sophomore Sean Toomey-Stout, their top rusher and tackler, and senior Hunter Smith, a two-way All-League player who holds seven school records, midway through game #5 at Vashon.
Friday night CHS may have taken another body blow, as juniors Matt Hilborn and Chris Battaglia spent the second half on the sidelines, with visits to doctors and x-rays still to come.
Both are key two-way starters, bruising rushers and defensive stalwarts. Hilborn is also Coupeville’s kicker.
He went down with an ankle injury which looked disturbingly like the one which ended Sean Toomey-Stout’s season, while Battaglia re-injured his ribs.
Senior receiver Cameron Toomey-Stout, who has been reduced to fighting off triple teams as Coupeville’s lone remaining big-play threat, also took an especially nasty shot to the throat after hauling in a catch.
In one of the few moments of grace for the Wolves this season, Camtastic sat out a play or two and returned to end the game, a time when Wolf QB Hunter Downes exited the field moving unsteadily after absorbing several vicious hits.
The Wolves, who started the season 2-0 and were still flying high after beating Vashon, are fighting two wars in the second half of the season — one against their foes and one in just trying to stay upright and in one piece.
Even with all the pain and bad karma, Coupeville hung tough with Klahowya for a half, trailing just 14-0 at the break.
Taking advantage of the depleted CHS defense, which was also missing a key starter who was on a hunting trip, the Eagles ran, ran and ran some more.
Tyler Vandergriff, a burly battering ram, softened up the line, then fleet-footed frosh Hunter Wallis got the glory, running away from Wolf tacklers on a pair of short TD sprints.
The scores came on Klahowya’s first two possessions of the game.
Wrapped around an equally long drive by Coupeville, which flamed out after the Wolves had first and goal from the three-yard line, one Eagle score came at the 7:29 mark of the first quarter, the next at the 7:46 mark of the second.
Klahowya, much as it did the previous week when it upset Port Townsend, utilized a bend-but-don’t break defense in the first half.
Cameron Toomey-Stout snagged five passes and piled up 55 yards on Coupeville’s opening drive (he finished with 13 for 128), only to see his team come up short in the red zone thanks to two penalties, a run blown-up in the backfield and a deflected pass.
Intent on doing as much as humanly possible, Camtastic returned a kickoff 60+ yards late in the second quarter … only to see his team stall out again.
This time, two short runs, an incomplete pass and a bobbled snap did the dirty deed.
After surrendering the opening touchdowns, Coupeville’s defense stiffened for the remainder of the half, with the defining play being Andrew Martin blowing up a Klahowya runner deep in the backfield for a big loss.
Atkins praised Ryan Labrador (“Really solid tonight on both sides of the line”) and Martin (“Andy is stepping up big for us; he continues to surprise me”) for their play under fire.
Even with four key starters chained to the sidelines by injuries, the Wolves opened the second half with a bang, as Jake Hoagland matched Toomey-Stout with a huge kickoff return.
But, just as before, Coupeville’s offense stalled out, unable to capitalize on incredible field position.
The Wolves didn’t break through until late in the third quarter, after Klahowya had tacked on another TD run, this one by Karsten Martinson, to stretch the gap to 20-0.
Downes, chasing Brad Sherman’s career touchdown passes record, rifled a 12-yard frozen rope to Toomey-Stout, hit Hoagland in stride for 25 more, than went up top to Camtastic for the score.
The 31st TD heave of his career (which puts him two shy of Sherman’s mark), it was a gorgeous bomb to the deepest part of the right corner of the end zone.
Toomey-Stout, having zipped past his defender, reached to the heavens and pulled it in at the very last second, his feet dancing just inside the line.
Things went downhill from there, though, as CHS, without Hilborn on the field, missed the PAT.
Tack on another short Klahowya TD run, then a 70-yard pick-six by Eagle Andrew Dickson, and the game was out of reach.
The undermanned Wolves scrapped until the end, however, getting a second score midway through the fourth quarter.
Toomey-Stout pulled off another long kickoff return, then hauled in a 19-yard bomb from Downes to move his team down the field.
A couple of power runs from Martin put the Eagle defense on its heels, before Downes, running behind Julian Welling’s teeth-rattling block, crashed in from three yards out for his second rushing TD of the season.
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