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Posts Tagged ‘football’

Let Dawson cook!

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , on July 13, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Dawson Houston (left) and Kwamane Bowens pose with super fan Davin Houston after the Everett Royals won for the fourth time in five games. (Alia Houston photo)

Now, if the stat keepers could just move as fast as Dawson Houston.

The former Coupeville High School quarterback lit up the sky Saturday, throwing for a pair of touchdowns to help spark the Everett Royals to a 50-22 thumping of the Seattle Seminoles.

While it took four days for the semi-pro football franchise to post complete stats — not that any Whidbey-based bloggers were counting the hours (close to 100…) — Houston was impeccable in the moment.

The victory, coming in Everett’s home finale, lifts the squad to 4-1.

The Royals, who also feature former CHS gridiron coach Kwamane Bowens on defense, sit atop the Impact Conference East standings in the Gridiron Developmental Football League.

Houston, getting his most playing time of the season, sliced up the Seminole defense, completing 9-15 passes for 94 yards.

Bowens was his usual explosive self on defense, as well, adding five tackles and an interception.

The former D-I player, who now coaches at Anacortes High School, has 33 tackles, two interceptions, and a fumble recovery on the season.

The Royals get back at it Saturday, hitting the road to face the Spokane Wolfpack.

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A campin’ they will (still) go

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , on July 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »

The Wolves are headed to football camp, but in Shelton, not Tenino. (Davin Houston photo)

The road trip is back on, just with a slightly different destination.

When most of the Tenino High School football staff resigned last week, it looked like an annual late June gridiron camp run by the Beavers would fall by the wayside.

The team most affected by that — at least for readers of this blog — was Coupeville, which was primed to jam everyone into vehicles and head down to terrorize people on the black turf.

When news broke, Wolf coaches immediately begin to look for other team-building options.

But now, with the camp moving from Tenino to Shelton, CHS caravan drivers are once more ready to fuel up (at inflated gas prices), cram as many meat sticks as possible into glove compartments, and crank AC/DC up to 11.

“Sounds like (Tenino) Coach (Cary) Nagel has communicated and worked with the Shelton program and will head up the camp there instead,” said Coupeville pigskin guru Bennett Richter.

“This year there will be 10 teams, but with Nagel running things the transition should go quite smoothly!”

Being able to keep the camp alive, even with Tenino coaches in limbo, was huge for everyone involved.

“I’m really just happy our kids will get an opportunity to go to camp this year,” Richter said.

“There is nothing better for a team than when you can get away and have nothing but one goal and each other to focus on.”

In a move which would be very popular with your local blogger — who ain’t taking the Xterra all the way down to Tenino, or Shelton for June football — Richter and Co. are also looking into the possibility of Coupeville hosting its own camp in the future.

Camp Casey, maybe get ready for some pigskin action.

“I have looked into what would need to be done for a camp here next season,” said the Wolf headman. “If I get the word out soon enough, I feel there is a real potential for that.”

With the recent scramble, Richter got a feel for the work involved, but it also fired him up.

“These last couple days have been a rat race to figure out what’s going on,” he said.

“I have basically planned a whole camp in the hopes to get teams here and also planned a whole week for just us to get away and practice, if need be, and now I will not end up using either this year,” Richter added with a laugh.

“But … coaching life … nothing I’d rather be doing!”

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Tenino troubles, Coupeville camp-less

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , on July 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Coupeville football players continue to put in summer work but won’t be going to a scheduled camp. (Nikki Breaux photos)

A resignation at another school has put a wrinkle in the summer schedule for Coupeville High School football.

The Wolves were slated to hit the road July 20-22, returning to Tenino’s annual summer camp, held on its famed black gridiron.

But things went sideways late last week, when the Beavers lost head coach Cary Nagel and most of his staff.

That has led Tenino to cancel the camp, as it scrambles to find a football staff five weeks out from the start of practice for a new season.

Nagel, a Shelton alum who previously coached at his alma mater and Franklin Pierce, has been in charge at Tenino for six years.

During that time, he turned around a program mired in mediocrity, with the Beavers going 10-2 and 9-2 the past two seasons.

Under Nagel’s leadership, Tenino captured its first league title since 2013, and has back-to-back state tourney appearances.

His 2021 squad won a game at the big dance, the first time the Beavers gridiron squad has achieved that since 1986.

In an interview with The Chronicle, a newspaper based in Centralia, Nagel said his resignation was due to “a series of circumstances the past few months.”

“After talking with my family and my close circle, it was time to close the chapter in Tenino,” he said. “Take a deep breath and move on to something else in the future.”

The Wolves rumble on the black turf in Tenino last year.

Coupeville coaches, coming off their own triumphant season, are scrambling to find something to replace the camp.

That could be something involving other schools, or a team-only event, depending on how things develop.

The Wolves had a very strong team-wide performance at last year’s Tenino camp, and that carried over to the season, when they went 7-2 for first-year head coach Bennett Richter.

Coupeville won its first league title since 1990, then hosted Onalaska at Oak Harbor in the first state playoff game for the CHS football program in 32 years.

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Wolf grad plays in All-State gridiron game

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , on June 24, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Wolf alumni Dominic Coffman hangs out with Grandma Saturday at the Earl Barden Classic in Yakima. (Photo courtesy Brent Coffman)

Coupeville represented in the Eastern heat.

On a sunny Saturday where temps in Yakima crested into the mid-80’s, recent Wolf grad Dominic Coffman participated in the Earl Barden Classic.

The game is an annual all-star event for senior football players from classes 1B, 2B, 1A, and 2A.

In what was termed as “the hardest-fought game in the history of this football game” by event organizers, the East pulled out an 8-6 win in overtime.

Coffman, the Northwest 2B/1B League Offensive MVP during his final season at CHS, had two carries as a running back for the West team.

He also recorded five tackles, delivering several big hits, while “locking up my whole right side on defense.”

The game was scoreless after four quarters of play, with each team having a potential touchdown waved off by antsy refs.

In overtime, the East scored when Kaleb Hernandez of Royal shot in from three yards out, then added a two-point conversion run.

The West put points on the board with a one-yard plunge by Montesano quarterback Jaden McElravy.

Its two-point conversion failed, however, as the East swarmed Mount Baker running back Marcques George right in front of the goal line.

It was the fifth-straight win for the East, which was led by defensive MVP Jaden Radke of Okanogan.

Playing with the big boys. (Photo courtesy Brent Coffman)

By playing in the all-star game, Coffman follows in the footsteps of former Coupeville greats such as Mike Bagby (2006), Josh Bayne (2015), and Ryan Labrador (2019).

He was one of only two players selected from this region, joining Adriaan Castro of 2A Anacortes.

Coffman, a First-Team All-League pick on both sides of the ball, scored a team-high 14 touchdowns during his senior season.

Picking up most of his yards as a rusher after first slamming into, and knocking over would-be tacklers, he helped the Wolves tie the program record for most TD’s on the ground (26), first set back in 2014.

Coupeville went 7-2, won its first league title since 1990, and advanced to the state playoffs for the first time in 32 years under first-year head coach Bennett Richter.

Dominic Coffman rumbles in prime time. (Photo property Tommy Wolf/Lit Media Productions)

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Former Wolf coach rips up gridiron

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , on June 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Kwamane Bowens, a fashion icon who can also de-cleat you on the gridiron. (Photo courtesy Bowens)

Don’t hurt ’em, Kwamane!

Whoops, too late.

Former Coupeville High School football coach Kwamane Bowens is pulling double duty these days, working with a new generation of gridiron stars in Anacortes, while still bringing the thunder on the field.

Bowens, who is also finding time to get married, achieve academic excellence, and drop fresh music at a dizzying rate as Groovie Mane, pulls on the pads for the Everett Royals semi-pro squad.

The former NCAA D-I scholarship player leads his current team in tackles, having rung up 20 through the first three games of the season.

The Royals, who also have former Coupeville QB Dawson Houston on their roster, sit in first place in the Impact Eastern Conference of the Gridiron Developmental Football League.

Everett (2-1) returns to the field this coming Saturday, June 24 to host the Wenatchee Valley Storm, who are 0-3.

The Royals have found a great deal of success on the defensive side of the field, with Bowens and Co. holding their foes to a combined 28 points.

The other three squads in their division have all surrendered 60 or more points.

Bowens has played strongly in all three games, recording a season-high nine tackles against the Seattle Seminoles.

A Coupeville student in his younger days, the multi-threat talent returned to Cow Town after his college playing days, working as an assistant to head coach Marcus Carr.

Among the players Bowens helped train is Wolf grad Sean Toomey-Stout, currently playing for the University of Washington.

The football lifer was an assistant coach at Anacortes High School this past fall, helping guide a Seahawk team which went 9-2, falling 10-7 in a state quarterfinal nailbiter to eventual 2A runner-up North Kitsap.

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