Lindsey Roberts (left) and Ema Smith were two of the three Wolf hoops stars honored Tuesday on Senior Night. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
It didn’t go the way they might have hoped.
Run ragged Tuesday by a King’s team with state title aspirations, the Coupeville High School varsity girls basketball team got crunched on Senior Night.
Even on an evening when their six-foot freshman prodigy wasn’t at the top of her game, the visiting Knights had an answer for everything the Wolves tried, exiting the gym with a 59-11 win.
The loss, coming after Coupeville put up its fewest points in any game this season, drops CHS to 5-4 in North Sound Conference play, 7-9 overall.
The Wolves, who are guaranteed to be the #3 seed from their league when the double-elimination district playoffs start Feb. 4, close the regular season Friday at Granite Falls.
Things got off to a nice start Tuesday when Coupeville honored seniors Nicole Laxton, Lindsey Roberts, and Ema Smith before tip-off.
After the ball was tossed up in the air, however, things got much tougher.
King’s features frosh phenom Jada Wynn, who played in the junior NBA world tournament before attending a single day of high school.
On this night, though, she took a back seat, picking up four fouls, including an offensive charge after Wolf freshman Ja’Kenya Hoskins stood her ground, and scored “just” 10 points.
The Knights, a deep, talented, polished team, merely shrugged, with sophomores Claire Gallagher and Mia Flor tossing in 17 and 12 respectively.
Coupeville, as a team, didn’t crack double digits until the next-to-last play of the third quarter, then went scoreless in the fourth.
Down 8-0 in the early going, but dodging bullets as King’s had some shooting issues of its own, at least for a bit, the Wolves finally got on the scoreboard six minutes into the game.
The first bucket came courtesy Ema Smith, and it gave her 201 points for her prep career, making her just the 55th Wolf girl to top that mark since the modern program began in 1974.
Unfortunately for CHS, that was its only basket of any kind for quite a bit.
By the time Hannah Davidson swooped in, snatched a rebound and went back up strong for a second-chance bucket, the game was 21-2 in favor of King’s and slipping away quickly.
To make sure to drive the point home, the Knights followed up Davidson’s put-back by nailing back-to-back three-balls, two of the eight treys they hit on the evening.
A 27-7 halftime deficit ballooned badly after the halftime break, as King’s, continuing to play with its customary take-no-prisoners style, went on a 25-4 romp in the third.
Two buckets from Roberts, one off a nice dish by Scout Smith, gave CHS fans some brief respite, but, ultimately, it was a game the Wolves will do well to quickly scrub from their brain pans.
But, just because it was a one-sided affair doesn’t mean there weren’t a few bright spots.
Coupeville coach David King praised the play of Roberts, who had to fight through a constant wave of defenders, as well as Davidson’s work on the boards, and defensive dynamo Tia Wurzrainer’s scrappiness while still contesting passes in the late going.
Roberts finished with four points Tuesday, lifting her to 422 for her career.
She needs just two more buckets to pass Cassidi Rosenkrance (423), Mika Hosek (424), and Sarah Powell (425) and become the #20 scorer in program history.
Chelsea Prescott added three free-throws in support of Roberts, with Davidson and Ema Smith providing the night’s other buckets.
Roberts had a team-best eight rebounds, Avalon Renninger yanked down five boards and doled out three assists, with Scout Smith collecting five boards, two blocks and a steal.
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