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Posts Tagged ‘defense’

Defense rules the day!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, Middle School, tagged back from break, Basketball, CMS Wolves, defense, Forks, road trip on January 5, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Hawthorne Wolfe and the CMS 7th grade varsity are 4-2 after a big win Thursday. (John Fisken photo)

Heading off to the wilds of Forks. (Bob Martin photos)

Get away from the snow and things are actually pretty dang scenic.

Sage Downes and his 8th grade teammates put up a strong fight, but fell to a high-powered offense. (Fisken photo)

No baskets. Ever.

Employing a blistering man-to-man defense Thursday, the Coupeville Middle School 7th grade varsity boys’ basketball squad froze out host Forks.

Holding the Spartans to a measly five points over the game’s first 24 minutes, the Wolves ran away with a 23-16 win in their first game in three weeks.

The victory lifts Randy King’s team to 4-2 on the season, and was the highlight on a day when Forks won two of three games.

Coupeville was nipped 46-38 in the 7th grade JV game while the 8th grade varsity fell 67-25.

Kicking off the second half of its 10-game season, CMS made its longest trek of the year, braving the snow (and alleged twinkly vampires).

The 7th grade varsity was on point from the opening tip.

“Defense. How’s about that 7th grade defense?,” King said. “Gave up one in the first and two in the second. And they were good!

“We didn’t shoot great but the “D” was incredible,” he added. “We are figuring it out!”

After combining for just 18 points in the first three quarters (the Wolves led 13-5), the two squads threw down 21 in the fourth.

Connor Barton paced CMS with 12 points, pouring in buckets in all four quarters.

He scored four in the final quarter, teaming with Hawthorne Wolfe, who knocked down all four of his points down the stretch, to keep Forks at bay.

Grady Rickner swished both of Coupeville’s free throw attempts in the fourth, as well, allowing the Spartans no hopes of launching a comeback.

Xavier Murdy rounded out the Wolf offense, dropping in five on the afternoon, while Caleb Meyer, Cody Roberts and Logan Martin also saw floor time.

7th grade JV nipped:

Coupeville had only six players, making for a lonely bench, but actually got stronger as the game went on.

Toss out a 20-8 Forks run in the first quarter, and the Wolves were the better team over the final three quarters to a 30-26 tune.

Gabe Shaw was a one-man wrecking crew, hammering home 14, while Martin added seven of his 10 in the fourth.

Logan Wertz (5), Roberts (5), Aiden Burdge (4, including a three-ball) and Jonathan Carroll rounded out the roster.

8th grade falls:

A slow start and a rough finish doomed the Wolves.

Jake Mitten banked home 11, while Daniel Olson chipped in with 10 to provide most of Coupeville’s offense.

Alex Jimenez and Dakota Eck each added a bucket, with Sage Downes and Ben Smith providing defense and hustle.

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A shot too short!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged Basketball, CHS Wolves, Concrete, defense, Hunter Smith on December 21, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Brian Shank threw down eight points Tuesday in a hard-fought battle at Concrete. (John Fisken photo)

One bucket.

Unable to come up with a game-changing one, the Coupeville High School boys’ basketball squad returned from Concrete bearing another ding on its shield.

Outlasted in a tough-nosed, low-scoring non-conference game Tuesday night, the Wolves fell 33-31, dropping their record to 1-8 on the season.

With Christmas break hitting, Coupeville is off until Dec. 30, when it travels to Orcas Island.

While negatives took their toll Tuesday — the Wolves were just 2 of 9 at the free throw line and tallied their second fewest-points of the season — CHS was consistent.

Unlike a lot of games this season, there was no big drop-off in one specific quarter to point at when scanning the post-game stats.

Coupeville dropped in eight in the first, five in the second, seven in the third, then rallied to its best showing with 11 in the final eight-minute stretch.

Hunter Smith tossed in 10 to pace the Wolves, while Brian Shank knocked down eight.

Gabe Wynn (7), Ethan Spark (3), Joey Lippo (2) and Cameron Toomey-Stout (1) rounded out the scoring attack, while Ariah Bepler and Hunter Downes also saw floor time.

Concrete (1-4 after the win) was led by James Schoolland, who went for a game-high 16.

Coupeville had three players knock down a three-ball, with Wynn hitting one in the first quarter and Shank and Spark nailing second-half treys.

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The streak lives!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged Chimacum, CHS Wolves, defense, Mia Littlejohn, winning streak on December 7, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Mia Littlejohn, seen here during fall ball, had a team-high 13 Wednesday in Coupeville's win. (John Fisken photo)

Mia Littlejohn, seen here during fall ball, had a team-high 13 points Wednesday in Coupeville’s win. (John Fisken photo)

A win is a beautiful thing.

Whether it’s by one point or 50 points, you put a W in the book, especially at home, and any little issues get swept to the side in the soft afterglow.

Case in point, the Coupeville High School girls’ basketball squad, which wasn’t perfect all game Wednesday, but was pretty close when it mattered.

Holding visiting Chimacum to just a single field goal over the final 12-minutes-plus, the Wolves broke open a tie game and ran away with a 41-28 victory in the 1A Olympic League opener for both schools.

The win, the third straight for Coupeville, lifts it to 3-1 overall, 1-0 in league play.

The Wolves also kept alive the second-longest winning streak in league history, improving to 19-0 in conference games dating back to the Olympic League’s debut in 2014.

Only Klahowya girls’ soccer has a longer active streak, having gone 20-0 over three complete fall seasons.

Coupeville, which trailed by five points midway through the second quarter, put the game on ice by thoroughly dominating the final quarter and a half.

Mikayla Elfrank broke a 22-22 tie when she slipped a pair of free throws through the twines with a little over four minutes left in the third, and then the Wolf defense got rabid.

Holding Chimacum without a field goal until a meaningless layup in the final 10 seconds of the game, CHS closed the game on a 19-6 tear, with five Wolves sharing the scoring load.

Tiffany Briscoe knocked down two more shots from the charity stripe, before Elfrank turned a mid-air steal into a breakaway bucket to close the third.

After that, the fourth was a prime example of five players meshing as one, as the Wolves forced a string of turnovers and turned them into easy buckets.

Lauren Grove made off with back-to-back steals, dishing to Lauren Rose and Elfrank for buckets, then was instantly rewarded for her team-first approach.

On the next play back court mate Mia Littlejohn bull-rushed a Chimacum ball-handler, picked her pocket, hip-checked the Cowboy into the third row of seats and flung a note-perfect pass to Grove for a breakaway lay-in of her own.

The play put a decisive stamp on the game, set off the Wolf bench into hysterics and capped a stellar night for Littlejohn.

The junior point guard tossed in a game-high 13, including three treys, made off with four steals, snatched two rebounds and handed out two assists.

Her three-ball timing was nearly flawless, with the first one banking off the backboard, the middle one tying the game heading into halftime and the final bomb pushing the lead into double digits.

Coupeville had opened the game strongly, hitting its first three shots en route to an early 7-2 lead.

Kailey Kellner drained a three-ball from the right corner on the game’s first play, before Briscoe aggressively went to the basket for back-to-back buckets off of set-ups from Littlejohn.

Then the Wolves hit their only down stretch of the night, as suddenly nothing would stay in the basket.

Balls rolled around, popped out and took weird spins, while Chimacum used a 10-0 surge to take its biggest lead of the game.

A trey from Littlejohn and a put-back off of a rebound by Kellner got the Wolves back on track, but they needed another three-ball right before the break to tie things up at 18-18 heading to the locker room.

While in there, CHS coach David King has a discussion with his team about its defensive effort and whatever he said, things clicked.

“We had a lot better energy level in the second half,” King said.

A switch from a zone to a man-to-man defense greatly frustrated Chimacum, and pesky Wolf defenders like Kyla Briscoe and Kalia Littlejohn helped the starters drive the Cowboy ball-handers batty.

When they weren’t getting actual steals, the Wolves forced several turnovers along the sideline as Chimacum players frequently panicked when double-teamed.

Coupeville spread its offense among six players, with Mia Littlejohn’s 13 backed by nine from Kellner and six apiece from Elfrank and Tiffany Briscoe.

Rose knocked down five and Grove added a bucket to round out the scoring.

Kellner snatched a team-high eight rebounds, while Elfrank nabbed six. Grove had four assists to top the team.

Coupeville’s JV team sat out the night, as Chimacum was unable to field a second squad thanks to injuries and ineligible players.

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Sack kings and gunslingers unite!!

Posted in Hall o' Fame, tagged 1996, CHS Wolves, defense, Gabe Eck, Hall of Fame, sacks on September 25, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Gabe Eck holds Coupeville High School’s single-game passing record with 403 yards. (John Fisken photo)

The Sack Kings. (Photo courtesy Tom Roehl Archives)

I have football on the brain.

Having spent a good chunk of time recently going through stat sheets, newspaper clippings and wadded-up bits of old paperwork, I have been able to pull together a pretty good approximation of what Coupeville High School’s gridiron records should be.

To see the full list, pop over to: https://coupevillesports.com/2016/09/10/roll-call-of-the-gridiron-greats/.

Then, come back here as we use today’s Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame induction, our 66th so far, to pay tribute to two of those records.

Spanning the decades, and both sides of the ball, we’re honoring a record single-game performance and a season’s worth of work by a fired-up defense.

So welcome to these hallowed digital walls former Wolf QB Gabe Eck, being honored for the night he threw for 403 yards against Chimacum, and the 1996 CHS defense, which holds the school’s record for most sacks by a team in a season.

After this, you’ll find them atop the blog, under the Legends tab.

And soon, immortalized on the school’s football record board in the gym, once the update is completed.

First up is Eck, who, although he only played one season in the red and black (he’s sporting Oak Harbor purple and gold this season) accomplished something no other CHS gunslinger ever did.

It was the night of Sept. 18, 2015, and Coupeville had jumped across on the ferry to face Chimacum.

Both teams entered at 0-2, and, after an injury to starting QB Hunter Downes, Eck, who had thrown eight passes at the high school level, was making his first prep start.

He responded in high style, completing 19 of 34 passes, spreading the ball out among five receivers as the Wolves captured their only win of the 2015 campaign, a 28-26 thriller sealed by a fourth-quarter field goal off the foot of Zane Bundy.

Hunter Smith was Eck’s main target, hauling in nine passes for 178 yards (just 24 shy of the school single-game receiving record).

CJ Smith (4-93), Ty Eck (3-82), Jordan Ford (1-28) and Lathom Kelley (2-22) also snagged aerials, with Ty Eck reaching the end zone twice and Hunter Smith once.

Coupeville kept its hosts guessing, as Wiley Hesselgrave rampaged for 152 yards on the ground, but it’s Gabe Eck’s arm which holds a place in Wolf lore.

The Wolves have had a string of strong QB’s (Bob Rea, Corey Cross, Scott McGraw, Brad Sherman, Ian Smith and Joel Walstad, to name but a few), but the highest any of them (Sherman) ever reached was 386 passing yards in a single game.

The only member of the 400-yard club walked the halls at CHS for just a year, but, until someone takes his record down, his impact outweighed his tenure.

Joining Eck’s single-game performance in the Hall is the season-long rampage thrown down 20 years ago by the 1996 gridiron squad.

While sacks are a relatively new stat (back in the ’40s and ’50s they were just tallied as tackles), all my research could find no more effective Wolf team at snaring the elusive QB than the one which played 20 seasons ago.

Led by the school’s career sack leader, Nick Sellgren, Coupeville recorded 22 sacks that season, spread among six Wolves.

Sellgren topped the charts with seven take-downs, while Joey Biller (4), Bill Marti (3), Rich Morris (3), Jason Sechrist (3) and Justin Thiesen (2) all chipped in.

While sacks are an exclamation point, interceptions (Arik Garthwaite snared a team-high four) and pass deflections (Jerry Helm poked away seven) are also important.

With that in mind, we induct the Wolf defensive unit as a whole, honoring the 21 players who make an appearance on the ’96 stat sheet:

Player	Tackles	Sacks	Fumbles	INT	Deflect

Greg White	45			2	1
Mike Vaughan	25		1	1	2
Pete Petrov	43			1	1
Arik Garthwaite	26			4	1
Joey Biller	61	4	1		1
Dan Palmquist	1
Peter Charron	2
Damon Vracin	8
Jomo Bowman	8				1
Jerry Helm	36			2	7
Rich Morris	67	3			1
Bill Marti	93	3	1	1	2
Nick Sellgren	84	7			2
Dan Russell	2
Jason Sechrist	45	3	2		1
Gary Boyke	4
Justin Thiesen	36	2
Aaron Henderson	3		1
Jeremy Ratcliff	1
Matt Brown	2
Tariq Omar	1

TOTALS	593	22	6	11	20

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“Defense has my heart!!”

Posted in Girls Soccer, tagged adventure, CHS Wolves, defense, Eastlake, Megan DePorter, Soccer on September 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »

New Wolf defender Megan DePorter enjoys the great outdoors. (Submitted photo)

New CHS defender Megan DePorter enjoys the great outdoors. (Submitted photo)

The start of the Coupeville High School girls’ soccer season has been all about offense.

Mia Littlejohn has torched the nets for 12 goals in the first five games, smashing the program’s single-season scoring record, and the Wolves are a healthy 3-1-1 overall, 2-0 in 1A Olympic League play.

Thursday, the defense gets super-charged.

When Coupeville takes the pitch to face non-conference foe North Mason, it will be adding a major weapon in senior defender Megan DePorter, a soccer vet making her Wolf debut.

Well, her Coupeville Wolf debut.

DePorter also wore a Wolf uniform during her days at Eastlake High in Sammamish, where she played as a freshman and sophomore, before transferring to CHS during her junior year.

After a year off from high school soccer, she’s ready to get back on the pitch.

“I love the competition there is to soccer,” DePorter said. “I am a very competitive person and I don’t like to lose.

“But it is also an escape for me,” she added. “I didn’t realize how much I missed playing from the time my club season ended until I started playing for the school this year.”

She’s been playing the beautiful game since age six, following in the footsteps of her father.

“I honestly don’t remember how I got into soccer,” DePorter said. “My dad always told stories about him playing when he was younger and when he was in college, so he has always been my rock in soccer.”

The 17-year-old (“going on 18 this year … whoop whoop”) has played every position on the pitch but “defense has my heart.”

“I think my strengths are that I am fast, I can truck people down easily (and legally), and that I’m not afraid to put my face in front of a ball to stop a goal,” DePorter said with a big laugh.

“There are many things that I still need to work on,” she added. “But a big one, especially being a defender, is my timing of when to challenge the ball and commit fully to an oncoming player or when to not commit fully and just try to turn them out to the sidelines.”

The self-described “very adventurous person” tried volleyball in middle school (“it wasn’t the sport for me”) and plans on joining the CHS track team this spring.

“I don’t know what events yet, so we will see how that one goes.”

DePorter hails her entire family for their support, saying her soccer journey wouldn’t have been possible without their help.

“My dad has the biggest impact on the player and person that I am today,” she said. “He played when he was younger, so he always helped coach me and help me out whenever I am stumped.

“He is always there for me no matter what and I thank God every day for him (and the rest of the family, of course),” she added. “My family has never missed a game that I played in and they have always been there on the sidelines cheering me on everywhere my team and I went.”

She also credits her time spent on club teams such as the Bellevue Select Ravens for helping hone her game.

“My past coaches and most recent club team have also made a big impact on the player I am today,” DePorter said. “I learned so much from both the (Ravens) coach and the girls.

“I have that team to thank for a lot of the skill that I have today.”

A country music fan (“I might be from the city, but I do have a strong redneck side to me”), DePorter has pulled down a 4.0 in her time at CHS, and plans to fully embrace her final year of high school, on and off the field.

“I really want to win but overall it is my senior year and I just want to have fun,” she said. “I also want to help guide the younger class defenders and teach them some of the things I know that they might not know, so that they are able to succeed in their years to come in playing soccer.”

After graduation, her plans are semi-set, with an emphasis on continuing her life-long love affair with adventure.

“In the future I plan to attend community college for the first two years then transfer to a four year college and get my bachelors in God only knows what,” DePorter said with a laugh.

“As long as my end result involves animals and being active, not sitting behind a desk, I will be happy.”

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