Hall o’ Fame inductees (clockwise, starting in top left) Alexis Trumbull, Tracy (Taylor) Corona, Dalton Martin and Emma Laurion.
Excellence, in big moments and small moments.
The ability to dig deep and find that extra little bit of something special unites those going in to the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame today.
Three stellar female athletes, including one who will go down as the greatest Wolf who never was, and two big moments, one by an individual, one by a team, make up the 57th class to be ushered into these hallowed digital walls.
Please welcome Alexis Trumbull, Tracy (Taylor) Corona, Emma Laurion, the weekend when Dalton Martin won three throwing medals at state and the 2011 Coupeville High School softball squad, which pulled off the most improbable playoff win in school history.
After this, you’ll find the athletes and moments enshrined atop the blog, under the Legends tab.
Our first inductee, Trumbull, was a standout softball player, both as a flame-throwing hurler and a deadly hitter at the plate.
For much of her career, she didn’t have a ton of support around her, and the Wolves didn’t win a lot of games during her time (later in this induction ceremony we’ll discuss the biggest W she was part of, however).
That shouldn’t lessen her impact, because Trumbull, who went on to play college ball at Skagit Valley, was as dependable a player as you could want.
She never looked flustered, even when things were falling apart around her, and was a rock for a program trying to rebuild.
Her impact went far beyond wins and losses, and she should be remembered for being a serene star who left it all on the diamond every game.
That’s a trait Corona always had during her stellar run as a three-sport (volleyball, basketball, softball) star.
The late ’90s to mid-2000’s are rightfully viewed as the golden age for CHS girls sports, and the 2002 grad was a key part of that success.
As a sophomore, Corona played on the first Wolf girls’ basketball squad to ever win a game at state, then teamed up with Sarah Mouw and Ashley Ellsworth-Bagby to put an emphatic stamp on their senior seasons.
Led by the terrific trio, Coupeville finished 6th at state in basketball (best in program history) and 3rd at state in softball (tied for best in school history for any sport).
The Wolves also advanced to state in volleyball that season, marking the only time in the 116-year history of CHS that all three core girls sports teams went to the big dance in the same school year.
Corona was indispensable in all three sports, part of the glue which held those squads together.
Need someone to pound in the paint? Someone to get a key hit at just the right moment? Couldn’t go wrong with picking her.
Our third inductee, Laurion, is the classic case of what could have been.
She’s going into our hall because she learned the game of soccer here in Coupeville, but, unfortunately for Wolf fans, she put together her record-setting prep career in Bremerton.
Having left Whidbey at age nine, thanks to her dad’s military transfer, Laurion ended up at Crosspoint Academy, where she was a volleyball and basketball star before graduating in 2015.
But it was soccer, the sport she picked up playing with future Wolves like Julia Myers and Marisa Etzell, which became her true claim to fame.
During her time at Crosspoint, Laurion rained down a mind-boggling 118 goals in four years, leading her squad to back-to-back 1B/2B state titles.
And she shone brightest in the big moments, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 championship win as a junior, before tossing down a hat trick in the final game of her senior season.
We could wonder what it would have been like for Coupeville to have played ATM and King’s with Laurion running wild, or we can merely step back, stop crying, and honor her for all she accomplished, regardless of the uniform.
Yep, let’s do number two.
Joining her in the “what could have been” category, but in a different way, is Martin.
A standout football, basketball and tennis player, he was severely hampered by injuries (concussions mainly) which eventually whittled down his athletic choices.
Instead of complaining, Dalton turned to track and finished his high school days with a bang.
After taking 5th at state in the discus as a junior, Martin went bonkers in his final trip to Cheney as a Wolf.
By the time he was done this spring he had claimed three medals (2nd in the discus, 8th in the shot put and javelin, with the last event being one he had picked up just five weeks prior).
That put him in auspicious company, as one of just seven Wolves to have won three medals at the same state track meet.
Even better, he is the only one of the seven to have accomplished the feat solely as a thrower.
Now he’s droppin’ viral videos and preparing to take his throwing skills to the college level, but, before he goes, we just had to give him one more honor.
Our final inductee today is the most unlikely.
The 2011 CHS softball squad did not have a great season. Can’t sugarcoat that.
The only 1A school to take the diamond that year in the Cascade Conference, they got beat on by ATM and Co. and finished the regular season at 0-17.
But, as I mentioned, they were the only 1A school (South Whidbey was up in 2A at the time and King’s doesn’t play softball), so, whether they wanted it or not, the Wolves were playoff-bound.
At which point they pulled off the most stunning postseason win in school history.
Led by the seasoned Trumbull, a team which played as many as six freshmen in the lineup at some points shocked the world (and Meridian), bouncing the Trojans out of the playoffs to a 5-1 tune.
A pair of close 7-3 losses to Friday Harbor and Lynden Christian ended Coupeville’s season at 1-19, but that win will stand forever as proof that any team can win on any day.
The Wolves scored first, with Trumbull crunching a double, followed by singles from Autumn Stevenson and Bessie Walstad.
Tied at 1-1 in the fourth, Meridian finally looked like it was ready to break out, loading the bags with just one out.
At that point, CHS coach Jackie Calkins pulled her starting pitcher (Stevenson) and brought Trumbull on in relief.
Game over.
Alexis whiffed the next two batters, hung three more scoreless innings on Meridian, and fueled a game-winning rally in the fifth.
Madeline Roberts led off with a walk, went to third on yet another double by Trumbull, then scampered home with what would be the winning run on a ground-out off of Stevenson’s bat.
Coupeville tacked on two more in the inning, using walks to Walstad and Breeanna Messner and a huge error on a ball smacked by Sydney Aparicio.
The game’s final run came courtesy of back-to-back two-baggers from Walstad and Aparicio.
There have been huge playoff wins in CHS history, landmark ones like the 1970 boys’ hoops team winning the first district title by a Whidbey Island team.
But none have been so improbable, and possibly, so satisfying, as a season of pain was washed away by one glorious afternoon in which the Wolves stood tall and howled as a team.
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