Travis Pennington
Pennington hauls in his second interception of the game during a big win against Vashon last season.
With Coupeville leaving the 1A/2A Cascade Conference and joining Port Townsend, Chimacum and Klahowya in the 1A Olympic League this fall, now is a great time to learn a bit about some of the players who will face off with the Wolves in the future.
Travis Pennington picked a great time to have a breakout game last season.
Pennington, who will be a senior at Chimacum High School this year, picked off two passes to help the Cowboys beat Vashon Island 33-21 in a game that covered two days and ended at an unusual site.
The battle started on a Friday night at Memorial Field in Port Townsend, a stadium Chimacum shares with its closest rival.
Then, moments after Pennington’s second pick, a transformer fire killed the power and brought the game to a screeching halt with a little over five minutes left to play and Chimacum trailing 21-20.
Three days later, action was picked up at Chimacum High School — the first time any part of a game had been played at the high school since at least the 1970’s — and the Cowboys rallied for the win behind two scores from Alex Morris.
It was a season-defining win for a Chimacum squad that was bedeviled by injuries last season — Pennington was among a chunk of Cowboys who missed the season finale at Coupeville, sitting out a 54-0 non-conference blowout with a concussion.
The Vashon game, and his key role in the win, makes for a much better memory.
“We ended up winning in Chimacum, which was the first time in a few decades CHS has done that,” Pennington said. “I’m proud to be a part of something special like that.”
As he prepares for his final season, and another crack at Coupeville now that the schools have become league rivals and will play twice, Pennington is confident he can help bring leadership to the Cowboys.
“My goals are to teach the underclassmen how to work hard and play with pride,” he said. “Football is my favorite sport because it isn’t a one person sport. It takes a team to succeed.
“I enjoy the excitement and the competition of the game,” Pennington added. “My athletic strengths are studying my opponents strengths and weaknesses and I’m very loyal to my teammates.”
While he missed out on last year’s game against Coupeville, Pennington did play against the Wolves as a sophomore.
In that game, Chimacum held on for a wild 56-39 win on a sloppy, muddy field in Port Townsend in a game that featured ejections, a ref tackled in the end zone (on purpose) and 300-pound Wolf lineman Nick Streubel getting a rare hand-off and carrying five Cowboy players on his back as he crashed into the world’s biggest mud hole on the right sideline.
Regardless of how this year’s games play out, Pennington appreciates his time as a Cowboy, and the lessons he’s learned along the way.
“Most of my coaches that I have had made huge impacts on me,” he said. “For the past four years they have pushed me to be a better student, athlete, and man.”
When he does hang up his football helmet and pads, Pennington will look to finish his final year at Chimacum on a high note, combining education with fun.
“My interests, other then sports, are graduating high school, getting a college degree so I can provide for a family and having good times with friends.”
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