Tim Ursu scored a pair of truly-electrifying touchdowns Friday as Coupeville battled Klahowya to the final moments. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
One game into the season, and the highlight reel is already full.
Pulling off big play after big play Friday night, the Coupeville High School football team welcomed its fans back to Mickey Clark Field in style, coming within a hair of toppling a notoriously-tough former league rival.
While the Wolves fell 42-39 to visiting Klahowya in a game which featured 12 touchdowns, they lit up the night and made the prairie rumble.
Penalties stung, especially back-to-back ones which negated successful field goal tries from CHS kicker Daylon Houston — huge in a game decided by three points — but it was ultimately a loss which felt a lot like a win.
Coupeville and Klahowya clashed in the 1A Olympic League between 2014-2018, and while Wolf varsity teams outdid the Eagles in general, CHS never beat its rival on the gridiron.
Jump forward to 2021, make the game a non-conference affair, with Coupeville now a 2B school and Klahowya still boasting a much-larger student body, and some might have expected things to be a bit lopsided.
Not so fast.
The Wolves jumped on the Eagles fast, scoring just four plays into the season when junior Dominic Coffman went airborne to pick off a pass, before bolting 25 yards for the pick-six.
Tack on the extra point, which Houston blasted through the uprights, and Coupeville, up 7-0, had already topped its scoring effort in last season’s opener, when it beat La Conner 6-0 in overtime.
Coffman’s play, the first of two interceptions for The Dominator, lit the fuse on an explosive first quarter.
The teams combined for five touchdowns and 34 points in the first 12 minutes, giving announcer Willie Smith a vocal workout even as he scrambled to cue up appropriate music moments from Def Leppard and Nirvana.
Klahowya seized the lead back fast enough to make your head spin, with quarterback Damon Clarke rushing for a score, before hooking up with Logan Wallis on a 34-yard touchdown pass.
It was the first of four visits to the end zone for Wallis, just a sophomore, and already ready for prime time.
Coupeville’s answer? Hit ’em back just as hard.
A play after Wallis hit pay-dirt, Wolf junior Scott Hilborn broke to the left side of the field on a running play, smashed through not one, not two, but three separate defenders, then roared down the sideline as Coupeville’s fans exploded.
Plunging into the end zone to cap a 64-yard scoring run, the younger brother of former CHS star Matt Hilborn made an emphatic statement that this is his time to shine.
Klahowya caught a break, however, as its line surged on the PAT try, knocking down Houston’s potential game-tying kick before it could reach the outer atmosphere.
Clinging to a 14-13 lead, the Eagles got another scoring pass from Clarke to Wallis to carry a 21-13 advantage into the first break, but the scoring was just getting started.
Coffman plucked a second interception out of the air to set the Wolves up, then came back around to score his team’s next touchdown.
It came on a 22-yard reception, with CHS quarterback Logan Downes dropping the pass down the left sideline just out of reach of a Klahowya defender.
Dominic Coffman had two interceptions and two touchdowns in the season opener.
A wee bit of frustration set in when Coupeville failed to convert on the two-point conversion attempt, followed shortly thereafter by the self-inflicted thwarting of Houston’s field goal.
Tim Ursu ripped off a 17-yard plunge through the Eagle defense to set the Wolves up, but then the refs got extremely technical.
On Houston’s first try, which sailed flawlessly through the uprights, both teams were called for offsetting penalties.
On the second, which also was a smash down main street, it was just Coupeville’s line which supposedly erred.
Attempt #3, with field position pushed back thanks to the penalty, missed just wide right.
Still within 21-19, Coupeville’s defense responded strongly on the next Klahowya possession, with Brian Casey and William Davidson barreling through the line to stuff Eagle runners for losses.
But a face mask penalty on the Wolves gave the visitors new life, and Clarke plunged in from 10 yards out, seemingly sending Klahowya to the half up 28-19.
With time to run two plays before the half, Coupeville, starting at its own 36-yard line, meekly picked up three yards on a carry up the middle.
Time to sit down and rest and…
GOOD LORD, TIM URSU IS KILLIN’ FOLKS OUT THERE!!!!
Wolf quarterback Cole Hutchinson flipped a short pass that looked like it would fall just wide of Ursu and bring on the halftime buzzer.
Except, Ursu, who is listed at five-foot-eight, reached about seven feet into the air, poked the ball skywards, then snagged it with one hand as it was falling.
Which, in itself, would be pretty darn impressive.
Except, Ursu wasn’t finished.
The ball in his hand(s), Ursu made all 11 Eagles miss as he somehow found a path to freedom.
Hip-checking would-be tacklers into the woods, he careened 64 yards down the field, crashing into the end zone with the clock reading 0:00.
Tack on a successful two-point conversion run, and, against all odds, Coupeville was within a single, solitary point at 28-27 with everyone on both sides of the field looking for oxygen tanks.
If the second half wasn’t as high scoring, with just four touchdowns split between the two squads, it still contained its own fair share of eyeball-popping plays.
Davidson recovered a fumble, after Ursu knocked the ball loose, followed by Hutchinson following his line in on a one-yard run to stake Coupeville to a 33-28 lead late in the third quarter.
Unfortunately for the Wolves, Wallis was still hanging around the joint, and he ripped off back-to-back mind-melting touchdowns as Klahowya reclaimed the advantage.
First the Eagle whiz kid took a kickoff to the house, covering 80+ yards, then he snagged a pass from Clarke and turned it into a 60-yard jaunt to the promised land.
Up 42-33, Klahowya started to relax and…
GOOD LORD, TIM URSU IS KILLIN’ FOLKS OUT THERE!!!!
Again.
Matching Wallis yard for yard, Ursu hauled in a kickoff, then never stopped running until he had covered 80+ yards of his own.
And it wasn’t a quiet Sunday drive, but a run made of gristle and grit, as he popped the heads off of multiple Eagle defenders who all tried valiantly, but somehow failed to bring him down.
Coupeville’s two-point conversion failed, however, leaving the Wolves down 42-39 as the scoreboard clicked over to the fourth quarter.
With a very real chance the teams would combine for 100+ points on opening night, things seemed set up for an explosive finale.
It wasn’t to be, though, as, maybe a bit tired, the offenses finally stopped tearing up the field.
Stuffed on both of its fourth-quarter drives, Coupeville came up big with a fumble recovery at the 3:34 mark, only to give the ball back two minutes later when a ball squirted loose.
That allowed Klahowya to run out the final 82 seconds and seal the win, but CHS coach Marcus Carr and his players still had a well-deserved spring in their step during the postgame mingling with fans, friends, and family.
“It was a good first game,” Carr said. “Dominic and Tim flew around and made plays, and Cole played well.
“There are some areas to clean up, but our offense looked a little better than it has before.”
And with that the countdown turns to next Friday, when Coupeville travels to Langley to play arch-rival South Whidbey in a bid to reclaim ownership of The Bucket.
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