Jacobi Pilgrim was a key part of a very-deep group of CHS senior basketball players. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Hawthorne Wolfe will return.
He and fellow sophomore Xavier Murdy were the only non-seniors on this year’s Coupeville High School boys basketball team, unless we also count brief cameos from Daniel Olson and Grady Rickner.
But it’s Hawk and X who will be looked to as the leaders when the Wolf hoops program moves into a new era, and a new league, next season.
So it’s a true positive that, as he exited the gym Saturday after Coupeville fell 69-48 to visiting Mount Baker in a loser-out playoff game, Wolfe only had one thing on his mind.
“I just want to say how much these seniors, all of them, mean to me,” he said.
Saturday’s loss ended Coupeville’s season, a win shy of making it to the double-elimination round of the district tourney, while Baker moves on to play King’s next week.
While the Wolves finished 6-13, they were just a few plays away from wins in half their losses, and never failed to sell out every time on the floor.
That traces back to the work put in by the Class of 2020, said CHS coach Brad Sherman.
“They’re a really cool group of kids, and I’m very proud of them,” he said. “Of how hard they always played, and how they played with a lot of class.”
Sherman also pointed to the positive impact the Wolf seniors had on helping CHS basketball coaches rebuild the youth program aimed at bringing elementary school children into the sport.
With sessions held on Saturday mornings, the Coupeville players often had to pull themselves back out of bed after Friday night games, but they always did.
And right at the forefront, each time, coaching, reffing, teaching and inspiring, were the 12th graders.
“A lot of people are getting excited about Coupeville basketball again,” Sherman said. “The seniors have put in so much work the last couple of years, and are such a huge part of what we’re doing.
“We’ve grown the youth program from 20-30 kids to 80, and a lot of it is because of that senior group,” he added.
“We told them, they should be proud of all of that, win, lose, or otherwise. There is nothing to hang our heads about.”
Six seniors made their final appearance on the CHS floor Saturday — Mason Grove, Koa Davison, Jacobi Pilgrim, Ulrik Wells, Gavin Knoblich, and Jered Brown, who was the lone Wolf to play on the varsity all four seasons.
Coupeville loses 11 seniors total, with Tucker Hall, Chris Ruck, Jean Lund-Olsen, Chris Cernick, and Sean Toomey-Stout also departing.
Toomey-Stout, a one-man wrecking crew who has used his springy legs, tenacious attitude, and hands o’ steel to top the Wolves in most stat categories the past two years, was out of state for a family funeral.
With “The Torpedo” not in action, that left Coupeville at a disadvantage on the boards, something which was compounded when Davison was injured shortly after scoring his team’s first bucket of the night.
The lanky big man hobbled back on the floor to play in the fourth quarter, but his absence for 2.5 quarters hurt on a night when Coupeville had a short bench.
Mount Baker entered the playoffs at just 5-15, but comes out of the ultra-competitive 1A/2A/3A Northwest Conference, which skews records.
The Mountaineers, while they didn’t have a ton of height, were quick, efficient, aggressive, and deadly shooters.
None more so than junior Braedan Hart, who tagged Coupeville for 31 points, hitting seven shots from behind the three-point arc.
The Wolves never led, falling behind 10-2 to start the first quarter, but fought back and kept the game close until a third quarter letdown.
Murdy rippled the nets for a three-ball of his own to stop Baker’s initial run, then Wolfe collected Coupeville’s final six points of the opening quarter, slashing hard to the hoop for buckets against a ferocious defense.
Down 18-11 at the first break, Coupeville put together a 7-0 run midway through the second quarter to cut the lead to five, and had the deficit back to four with seconds to play in the half.
Hart delivered a dagger, however, burying a three-ball right before the break to stake the Mountaineers to a 32-25 advantage.
Grove opened the second half with a trey which sweetly dropped through the net, then Wells rolled into the paint and hit a soft jumper and we had a game at 34-30.
But then the offense vanished.
Coupeville shots which were dropping started clanging instead, and a scrambling Baker defense forced several key turnovers, fueling a 15-3 surge which put the Wolves on their heels.
The only positive in the stretch was a three-ball from the top of the arc by Knoblich, but that wasn’t enough to stem the tide, and the deficit soared from four to 16 as the end of the quarter neared.
The Wolves never got closer than 14 after that, and Hart banged away for 11 of his 31 in the final frame, helping make the final score seem more lopsided than it really was for much of the night.
Coupeville’s sophomore duo paced the team in scoring, with Wolfe banking in 13 points, and Murdy adding 10.
Grove went off for all nine of his points in the second half, and his final made shot, a fourth-quarter three-ball, gave him the season scoring crown in the closest race the CHS boys hoops program has seen in 103 seasons.
The man who will launch from anywhere finished his final campaign with 254 points, narrowly edging Wolfe, who tossed in 252 this season.
The two-point differential is the smallest ever between Coupeville’s #1 and #2 varsity scorers, after three previous teams saw a three-point difference.
In 1993-1994, Brad Miller edged Gabe McMurray 238-235, in 1990-1991 Jason McFadyen held off Sean Dillon 261-258, and way back in 1939-1940, Banky Fisher topped Gaylord Stidham 44-41.
And yes, that really is supposed to say just 44-41. It was a way different game back then.
Grove, who was a swing player as a sophomore, then a full-time varsity gunner the past two seasons, departs having scored 414 points, which puts him #54 on the CHS boys career scoring chart.
Wolfe, with two seasons ahead of him, has 410 points (the most scored by a Coupeville boy through their sophomore season) and is #55 all-time.
CHS got scoring from almost everyone on the floor Saturday, with Wells (8), Knoblich (3), Davison (2), Pilgrim (2), and Brown (1) also tallying points.
The lone Wolf not to score was sophomore Grady Rickner, a JV star who got to make a late-game appearance, a herald of positive things to come.
Final (unofficial) season scoring stats:
Mason Grove – 254
Hawthorne Wolfe – 252
Sean Toomey-Stout – 113
Xavier Murdy – 95
Koa Davison – 83
Ulrik Wells – 74
Jacobi Pilgrim – 67
Jered Brown – 56
Gavin Knoblich – 56
Jean Lund-Olsen – 10
Tucker Hall – 6
Daniel Olson – 2
