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Posts Tagged ‘CHS Wolves’

One for all, and all for one!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 6, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Mia Littlejohn torched Port Townsend for 15 in a big win Tuesday. (Sylvia Hurlburt photo)

   Mia Littlejohn torched Port Townsend for 15 in a big win Tuesday. (Sylvia Hurlburt photo)

Team, above all.

The Coupeville High School girls’ basketball squad is clicking on all cylinders, winning on great nights and less-than-flawless nights, for one huge reason.

They believe in each other.

All ten Wolves know their role, and they all take turns stepping up, and that’s why CHS is rolling and firmly atop the 1A Olympic League.

Tuesday night Coupeville wasn’t perfect (“We didn’t have our A game today,” said Wolf coach David King), but it hardly mattered as they held off host Port Townsend 45-34.

The team’s fifth straight win, it lifted the Wolves to 7-2 overall, 2-0 in league play.

Combined with a win by the Coupeville JV earlier in the night, the Wolf girls’ hoops programs are now a flawless 22-0 in the short year-plus history of the league.

Port Townsend sits at 1-1 for the current season, while Chimacum and Klahowya share the basement at 0-1.

Facing off with a scrappy RedHawks squad, the Wolves faced several obstacles, with the largest being seeing reigning league MVP Makana Stone planted on the bench for several long stretches.

With the high-scoring senior saddled with foul trouble, other players stepped up, however.

Sophomore point guard Mia Littlejohn put together her best scoring show of the season, dropping in a team-high 15, including a pair of long-range treys.

While she was sizzling on offense, junior ball-hawk Lauren Grove latched on to Port Townsend’s top threat, Kaitlyn Meek, and frustrated the RedHawk ace most of the evening.

After hanging tough in the first, Coupeville blew the game open with a 19-point second quarter, then closed things out with a strong performance in the fourth.

With Stone and rebounding ace Tiffany Briscoe shackled by the refs, everyone else stepped up, whether it was scoring or clamping down on defense.

Skyler Lawrence and Kyla Briscoe both shined in their time on the floor, while fellow swing players Lauren Rose and Allison Wenzel also saw key minutes.

When she was allowed on the floor, Stone tossed in 12 to back Littlejohn, while also snagging 13 rebounds and rejecting three shots.

Kailey Kellner popped for nine (and made off with three steals), freshman Lindsey Roberts came up huge with five points and seven boards and Tiffany Briscoe banged home four and hauled in seven caroms.

While there’s always room for improvement, King has never turned down a win.

And he realizes how big it can be for each player to realize they are a crucial piece in the puzzle.

“The girls are starting to see that they can step up and make things happen and realize that they don’t always have to rely on Makana,” he said. “That’s going to go a long way as we continue to strive to get better as individuals and as a team.”

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Brian Shank is a beast!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

You can't contain Brian Shank, you can only hope the refs conspire to stop him. (John Fisken photo)

   You can’t contain Brian Shank, you can only hope the refs conspire to stop him. (John Fisken photo)

In the end, the refs were the true spoilers.

The trio on the court for Tuesday night’s JV boys’ basketball game robbed the world of a great finish by hobbling Coupeville right at the worst moment, conspiring to foul out Brian Shank one shot away from achieving sainthood.

Without their three-point-bomb-droppin’, power-move-throwin’-down offensive juggernaut on the floor for the final minute and a half, the Wolves were unable to pull out a last-second miracle and fell 40-38 to visiting Port Townsend.

A phantom fifth foul on Shank (he was standing straight up, regardless of what a blind ref thinks they saw, and I have a gym full of equally “impartial” fans who will back me up) was the only way anyone was going to stop the CHS junior on this night.

Up until then, the RedHawks were unable to do much of anything with him, as Shank threw down a game-high 16, including the bucket which staked Coupeville to its final lead at 35-33.

And he was scoring every which way possible.

At one point in the first quarter, Shank hit a trey after releasing the ball from somewhere out around the locker room, then followed that up with a soft jumper.

The punctuation mark?

On the next play, he blocked a Port Townsend shot, grabbed the ball before it could go out of bounds, then spun, led the charge up court and roared coast-to-coast for a bucket as RedHawk players wilted in his path.

But when the dastardly refs decided to knife Coupeville, the Wolves were left without the one player who was absolutely locked-in all night.

Not that they went down easily, as Hunter Downes, back in action after recovering from a nasty injury, sliced through the paint for a hard-fought bucket to tie things up at 37.

But missed free throws in the waning seconds came back to haunt the Wolves, who had a last-gasp trey fall short at the buzzer.

Coupeville led for much of the night, building its biggest lead at seven early in the fourth, before foul trouble and inconsistent shot selection conspired to make life tough.

Gabe Eck tossed in eight in support of Shank, while Ty Eck netted six off of back-to-back third-quarter three-balls.

Downes dropped in four, Cameron Toomey-Stout slid a pair of free throws through the net and James Vidoni sank a gorgeous ten-footer to cap the scoring.

Araiah Bepler, Andre Avila and Beauman Davis rounded out the players who saw floor time, while injured Luke Merriman played faithful water boy for his teammates while hobbling around in a foot brace.

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Gut check time, men!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , , on January 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Gabe Wynn, seen here in an earlier game, scored five points Tuesday. (John Fisken photo)

   Gabe Wynn, seen here in an earlier game, erupted for five points in a short time span Tuesday. (John Fisken photo)

It could go either way.

After falling 59-45 to visiting Port Townsend Tuesday night, the Coupeville High School boys’ basketball squad sits on top of a precipice, and now it’s time to seize the moment and choose whether they stay up high or fully tumble down.

Tuesday’s loss was the third straight for the Wolves, as the fallout from a rocky winter break threatens to derail everything which was once going so well.

And yet, at 4-6 overall, 1-1 in conference play, Coupeville still sits snugly in second place in the 1A Olympic League.

Port Townsend is alone atop the standings at 2-0, the only wins the RedHawks have claimed in a 2-7 season, while defending league champ Chimacum and Klahowya are tied in the basement at 0-1.

Those two squads play Friday.

The Wolves, largely a team of role players, have looked very good at times this season, and always when they play as a team, each player stepping up and accepting their part in the grand scheme.

When they degenerate into 1-on-5 players and lose that cohesiveness, as they did at times against a more disciplined RedHawks squad, is when things go wrong.

“We have got to show up, especially for big games like this,” said Coupeville coach Anthony Smith. “We did not execute, at all, tonight.

“They killed us on the second chances, and we helped make them look very good,” he added. “We have three days now to decide if we’re going to come together and play as a team, play for each other.”

The Wolves, who had played in Langley the night before, came out a step behind Tuesday, falling behind 14-6 midway through the first quarter.

The killer was a six-point play, as Port Townsend hit a bucket, got the foul call, then tacked on three more free throws when the call was questionably upped to a flagrant foul, followed by a technical on the Coupeville bench for daring to ask why the call was changed.

Instead of fracturing at that moment, the Wolves used a timeout to sort things out, then ripped off nine straight points, easily their best run of the night.

Wiley Hesselgrave backed his man down for a bucket, then Gabe Wynn erupted for five points in about five seconds.

The Wolf junior hit a sweet trey from the top, then spun his defender around on the next play, slicing past him for a driving layup.

Playing aggressive defense, CHS capped the run with a steal and breakaway bucket from Jordan Ford, claiming their first lead of the night at 15-14.

Unfortunately, that would be the only time the Wolves would lead all night, as Port Townsend regained control of the game and begin to slowly inch away.

A 9-1 spurt, capped by a bucket that beat the first quarter buzzer by less than half a tick, staked the RedHawks to a 23-16 lead at the first break, and they never relinquished the lead.

Coupeville got within two again midway through the second quarter, only to see Port Townsend nail back-to-back three-balls.

One came from the right side, the other from the left, and much of the air went out of the Wolves.

Port Townsend stretched its lead to 11 after three quarters, then poured it on a bit in the fourth, going up by 18 at one point.

The Wolves found a brief bit of redemption at the very end, as JJ Johnson fed Ford for a bucket, then stole the in-bounds pass and shot through two defenders for the game’s closing basket.

Coupeville, which returns to action Saturday with a home non-conference game against Mount Vernon Christian, will use the next few days of practice to work on things like free throws (they were a weak 10 of 23 Tuesday).

One thing they did accomplish against Port Townsend was getting at least a little bit of offense from nearly every player on the roster, as nine guys scored.

Hesselgrave led the way with 11, while Ford banged home eight and Ryan Griggs dropped in six.

Wynn (5), Hunter Smith (4), Dante Mitchell (4), JJ Johnson (4), Risen Johnson (2) and DeAndre Mitchell (1) rounded out the scoring attack.

Jared Helmstadter and Desmond Bell also saw floor time for Coupeville.

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Reunited, and it feels so good!!

Posted in Softball, tagged , , , , on January 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Kevin McGranahan, seen here coaching daughter Katrina in little league play, was tabbed as the new CHS head softball coach. (John Fisken photo)

   Kevin McGranahan, seen here coaching daughter Katrina in little league play, was tabbed as the new CHS head softball coach. (John Fisken photo)

They’re getting the old gang back together.

Highly successful juniors softball coach Kevin McGranahan is being reunited with his former Central Whidbey Little League players, after being tabbed as the new head coach for Coupeville High School.

The move was confirmed Tuesday by CHS Athletic Director Duane Baumann.

McGranahan replaces Deanna Rafferty, who resigned after one year at the helm of the Wolf program.

Rafferty went 7-12 and took her squad to the district playoffs last season.

She replaced David and Amy King, who stepped down in 2014, after taking Coupeville to its first trip to state in 12 years.

The duo have remained as CHS girls’ basketball coaches, but needed more time to focus on their real-life jobs.

McGranahan will inherit a squad which contains almost all of his players from his 2014 Venom squad, which went undefeated, ten-running every regular season foe en route to advancing to state.

That includes current sophomores like Katrina McGranahan, Hope Lodell and Lauren Rose, who all starred for the Wolves as freshmen, as well as big-hitting ninth graders Sarah Wright and Veronica Crownover.

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Onward and upward, Wolves!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 4, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Risen Johnson is ready to lead Coupeville into sole possession of first place in the 1A Olympic League Tuesday. (John Fisken photo)

   Risen Johnson is ready to lead Coupeville into sole possession of first place in the 1A Olympic League Tuesday. (John Fisken photo)

Turn the page and turn things around.

That’s what the Coupeville High School boys’ basketball squad will try to do Tuesday night.

The Wolves may have fallen 56-39 at South Whidbey Monday in a non-conference game, but they will have a chance to completely flip the script less than 24 hours later.

Coupeville, now 4-5, hosts Port Townsend at 7 PM Tuesday (JV 5:15) in the biggest game of the season.

With both the Wolves and RedHawks sitting at 1-0 in league play, Tuesday’s winner will claim sole possession of first place in the 1A Olympic League.

Defending league champ Chimacum and Klahowya, who are both 0-1 in conference play, will face off Friday.

Win or lose Tuesday, Coupeville will still have seven league games left.

But being in the drivers seat is always preferable.

The Wolves should have a full roster against the RedHawks, which was not the case against South Whidbey.

Two of the team’s top four scoring threats this season — Wiley Hesselgrave (#1 at 14.6 points per game) and Ryan Griggs (#4 at 5.3) — sat out against the Falcons.

Both are expected to be back on the floor against Port Townsend.

Without the duo, Coupeville got most of its scoring Monday from senior Jordan Ford, who poured in a team-high 19.

He was a consistent force from opening tip to final buzzer, tossing in four in the first, four more in the second, six in the third and five in the fourth.

JJ Johnson backed Ford up with six, hitting a pair of long treys, while Risen Johnson and DeAndre Mitchell each knocked down five.

Desmond Bell and Hunter Smith rounded out the Wolf scoring attack with a bucket apiece.

The Wolves, who were swept by their Island rivals this season, were held under 40 points for only the second time.

Both times have come against South Whidbey, which improved to 5-5.

The Falcons were led by Chase White, who went off for 26, and Lewis Pope, who chipped in with 20.

While the hosts led the entire way, the game was still close through three quarters.

South Whidbey went up 11-6 after one, stretched the lead to 28-20 at the half, then coasted to a 38-29 bulge after three. An 18-10 fourth quarter stretched the final margin out.

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