Gabe Shaw played strongly in two games Wednesday afternoon. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
One was over quickly, one came down to the final shot.
The two Coupeville Middle School boys basketball squads closed out their final appearance on their home court Wednesday in very different fashions.
The Wolf JV fell 59-25 to visiting Sequim, while the CMS varsity came within a final, desperate three-point bomb of upending their rivals in a wild 53-50 battle royal.
Both Coupeville teams wrap the season with a trip to Port Angeles Thursday to face ginormous Stevens.
Varsity:
Not a good game for those with heart conditions.
It started with a bang — Logan Martin hitting a rain of shots as Coupeville jumped out to a 9-0 lead — got dicey in the second half, then turned crazy in the final quarter, as the teams combined for almost 40% of the night’s points in the final eight minutes.
In the early going, everything was one smooth groove for the Wolves.
Martin took, and hit, the first three shots, a fall-away jumper, a soft fader and a three-ball from the left side, before Hawthorne Wolfe did his best ballerina imitation, snaring a rebound and twirling between defenders to lay the ball back up and in.
Even after Sequim finally got untracked on the offensive end, CMS had a quick answer.
Wolfe netted a pair of treys to cap the first quarter and Martin came back to end the half by banking a shot high off the glass.
As his bucket dropped through, the Wolves headed to the locker room up 23-16 and in control of things.
It didn’t last, though.
Coupeville’s shooting touch vanished for a quarter, and Sequim took advantage, using an 18-7 run in the third to take the lead for the first time.
Cody Roberts had a sweet running bucket, set up by a long airmail pass from Wolfe, but the Wolves struggled at the free throw line and, for the first time all night, started losing the war on the boards.
Trailing 34-30 as the fourth quarter dawned, Coupeville rallied to tie things at 38 when Wolfe splashed home his second three-ball of the quarter, and fifth of the game.
But, as quickly as the tie came, it went away.
In the matter of maybe a minute and a half, even if it felt more like two seconds, Sequim seemingly blew the game wide open.
A pair of three-balls later, a 9-1 surge by the visitors pushed the Wolf deficit to 47-39.
Game over and … X-Man has launched!
Xavier Murdy drilled back-to-back treys of his own to give Coupeville hope, then Aiden Burdge went and got crazy to light the fuse on the home crowd.
First he nailed a three-ball from the top with 32 seconds left, before picking the pocket of a Sequim ball-handler and feeding Caleb Meyer for a layup with 22 ticks to play.
Back within 51-50, the Wolves came with an aggressive look on defense, but couldn’t get the steal and had to foul to stop the clock.
To the delight of the three (loud) Sequim fans in attendance, the visitors tuned out the din of the local supporters and dropped both freebies through the net to force CMS to find a miracle.
And the Wolves almost did.
Wolfe got a good look at the bucket, and his three-ball from the left side hit the rim once, popped up, hit it a second time, swirled around and then, to the wails of his rabid fans, ricocheted away.
At which point, Sequim’s bench players rushed the court like it was Game 7 of the NBA finals, celebrating a come-from-behind win which gave them a split this season with Coupeville’s 8th graders.
The loss snaps a five-game winning streak for the CMS varsity, and they sit at 6-3 heading into their finale.
Wolfe finished with a game-high 17, while Martin banged home 11.
Murdy (8), Meyer (7), Burdge (5), Roberts (2) and Gabe Shaw rounded out the very-thin Wolf roster, while Sequim had a deep enough bench to sub in five at a time.
JV:
There was a moment when this game seemed like it would be a back-and forth affair. Then that evaporated.
Damon Stadler tore down a rebound, pounded the ball the length of the court and slapped home a layup a minute into the second quarter, pulling the Wolves within 9-8.
Part of a 9-3 run which featured scores from Isaiah Bittner, Shaw and Burdge — the latter coming on a swooping steal of an in-bounds pass — it positioned CMS well.
And then the much-more polished Sequim 7th grade squad struck, and struck hard.
Throwing down 11 straight points, then adding another seven after Wolf guard Alex Murdy briefly stopped the bleeding with a bank shot, the visitors put the game out of reach well before the halftime break.
Coupeville had a couple of quality plays in the late going, with Dominic “The Destroyer” Coffman drilling a three-ball and Tony Garcia rambling through the paint for a bucket on a nice spin move, but there were no comebacks on this afternoon.
The Wolves spread their offense around, with nine different players getting in on the fun.
Bittner, Murdy and Stadler led the way with four apiece, while Coffman (3), Burdge (2), Garcia (2), Shaw (2), Alex Wasik (2) and Ty Hamilton (2) also scored.
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