Kassie (Lawson) O’Neil, forever hitting nothing but net, on and off the court.
Kassie (second from left, back row), during her senior season.
Nothing but net.
Just give her the dang ball.
Kassie (Lawson) O’Neil was one of the deadliest scorers Coupeville High School basketball has ever seen.
It wasn’t always how many points she scored, though, but when she scored them, and how she scored them, that ensures her place in Wolf lore.
Kassie was a Killer, and you better spell that with a capitol K as you put some respect on her name.
Her sisters Kayla and Katie were hoops stars as well, and lil’ bro Kurtis a pretty darn good baseball player, but today the focus is all on the woman who just turned 29 a few days ago.
Now the mom of four young boys (all primed to make their names in a Wolf uniform as well, if local fans are lucky), Kassie is an extraordinary woman.
Today we swing open the doors of the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, and welcome her into our digital hideaway, an honor long overdue.
After this, you can pop up to the top of the blog, look under the Legends tab, and bingo, there she will be.
Not that she needed me to tell you she’s a legend, cause her game did all the talking.
One of the rare Wolves to net points at the varsity level in all four seasons, Kassie currently sits at #61 on the all-time CHS girls scoring chart (out of 229 players).
But that doesn’t tell the full tale.
Kassie played alongside some of the best scorers the Wolf program has seen, from Megan Smith (#4 all-time) to Shawna West and Ashley Manker, with both of her sisters tossed in to the bucket chase as well.
So Killer Kassie picked her moments, then delivered the daggers.
Two nights stand out the most, one in her junior season, the other when she was a senior.
On the night of January 18, 2008, Kassie and Co. welcomed private school juggernaut King’s to town, with everything on the line.
The Wolves and Knights were battling for the #1 playoff seed out of the Cascade Conference, and the visitors held a two-point lead with mere seconds to play in overtime.
Just give her the dang ball.
Thus setting up one of the biggest buzzer-beaters in school history — along with Ian Smith making all of South Whidbey weep sweet, sweet tears in 2011, and Steve Whitney shocking King’s in ’79.
Pulling up out in the parking lot, long before Steph Curry and Damian Lillard made it the popular thing to do, Killer Kassie banked home a game-winning three-ball.
Cue a 33-32 Wolf win. Cue an eruption in the CHS gym. Cue the birth of a legend.
While that first chapter happened in a flash, the second night Kassie claimed the spotlight, she did so for an extended period of time.
Facing off with Granite Falls late in her senior season (February 3, 2009), she went off for 13 of her team-high 19 points in the crucible of the fourth quarter.
Just give her the dang ball.
The Wolves entered the fourth quarter trailing 29-28, and eventually lost 51-49 when the visiting Tigers slipped in a game-winner at the buzzer.
Which doesn’t take anything away from Kassie’s torrid fourth quarter run.
She bounced off the bench with a gleam in her eye, nailed a three-ball to kick things off, then softly whispered, “Oh, there’s more where that came from, baby!”
At least that’s how I’d like to believe it went down.
I wasn’t there, but neither were you, very likely, so just go with it.
Either way, Kassie was locked-in over the game’s final eight minutes, following up her trey with a pair of buckets, a free throw, another bucket, then a final three-ball.
That long-range dagger, which rattled home with just 18 ticks left on the clock, knotted the game at 49.
Megan Smith, Mandi Murdy, Jesse Caselden, and Katie Smith also came up big with fourth-quarter buckets, but it was Killer Kassie who was unstoppable.
And here’s a fun fact.
Megan Smith, who Kassie shared the court with for three seasons, torched the nets for 1,042 points in her CHS career.
That included singing Friday Harbor for 30 while narrowly missing the program’s single-game scoring record of 32, set by Judy Marti in 1983.
Meanwhile, South Whidbey’s Lindsey Newman tormented Coupeville during the Kassie and Megan years, dropping 39 and 33 on the Wolves.
And yet…
Neither Megan Smith, in her four-year run, or Newman, in her meetings with CHS, ever went higher than 12 points in a single quarter.
Cause you have to be Killer Kassie to go out there and slap down a 13, while making it your lucky, and not unlucky, number.
Just give her the dang ball.
High school was big for Kassie, but it wasn’t even close to being her ceiling.
She went on to play some college ball, before shifting gears and becoming a mom and wife, a strong, accomplished woman, like her sisters, her mother DeeAnna, and her prairie ancestors, who include a town’s worth of Sherman’s.
Seeing the growth and development of her boys from afar, thanks to social media, is a testament to all she has accomplished, and all that is to come.
Pick your reason, and she’s a legend, worthy of all the praise and admiration.
Killer Kassie, forever hitting nothing but net, on the court and off.
Read Full Post »
