CHS hoops stars (l to r) Lauren Rose, Makana Stone, Lauren Grove and Kailey Kellner play for one of 16 teams to still have a shot at a 1A state title. (Amy King photo)
It’s Makana vs. Makenna.
The Coupeville High School girls’ basketball squad will face off with District 6’s #1 team, Cashmere, in the regional round of the state hoops tourney.
The Wolves (16-5), the #3 seed from District 3, will play the Bulldogs (15-7) Saturday, Feb. 27 at Wenatchee High School.
Tip-off is 4 PM.
That means the Wolves get to travel 163.7 miles (one way), double what they did for districts, while Cashmere will head just 11.6 miles up the road for the game.
Tickets (good for all day) will be $11 for adults and $8 for students (ages 5-11 and 12-18 with a middle school/high school ASB) and senior citizens (62 and over).
Children under five get in for free, so someone should think about putting together a preschool rooter bus of pro-Wolf fans to rock the joint.
Win and Coupeville, which is in the middle of its best postseason run since 2006, books a stay at the Yakima SunDome Mar. 3-5 for the eight-team, double-elimination portion of the state tourney.
To get there, the Wolves will have to beat a school which has finished third at state the past two seasons.
Cashmere’s only losses in six games at state over the past two years have come at the hands of the teams that went on to win the state title.
In 2013-2014 it was Lynden Christian, while King’s toppled the Bulldogs in 2014-2015.
Playing in the Caribou Trail League, a four-team conference in Eastern Washington that includes Chelan, Omak and Cascade, Cashmere went 8-1 in league play this season.
They have three players averaging between 12 and 14 points — 6-foot-1 junior post Abbie Johnson, 5-8 sophomore guard Cami Knishka and 5-9 senior guard Makenna Faulkner.
Coupeville counters with 5-11 senior post Makana Stone, who has had a double-double every game while throwing down 19.6 points a night, and a very stingy defense.
The Wolves, who are scoring 43.1 a game, are surrendering just 32.9.
Cashmere averages 54.2 on offense and 38.6 on defense.
When the two squads did lose this season, it came against top-level competition.
None of Coupeville’s losses were by more than eight points (they also lost by 2, 3, 4 and 4), and two of those teams (Bellevue Christian and Charles Wright Academy) also advanced to regionals.
Cashmere absorbed three double-digit losses in its seven defeats, but faced a brutal schedule.
Two losses came against 2A schools (Ephrata and East Valley of Spokane), three against 1A schools (Chelan, Zillah and Granger) and two against 2B schools (undefeated Okanogan and Mabton).
Five of those seven schools made it to regionals, with only Ephrata and Chelan having been eliminated.
This will be the 20th state playoff game in Coupeville girls hoops history (the Wolves are 7-12 all-time) and the 23rd for Cashmere (12-10), but the first time they have faced each other.
The two schools have a connection through Randy King.
Currently the head track coach at CHS (he did a 20-year stint as Wolf boys’ basketball coach from 1991-2011), King was the assistant coach on the Cashmere boys’ hoops squad that won the 1980 state title.
To see the regional draw, pop over to:
http://www.wiaa.com/Brackets/T1213.pdf
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