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Start your day with a run

Posted in Running, tagged CHS Wolves, CMS Wolves, Elizabeth Bitting, Fort Casey, Fort Ebey, Running on June 15, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Time to hit the trail.

Coupeville cross country gurus Elizabeth Bitting and Amber Wyman are hosting a series of free summer runs for high school and middle school aged students.

The morning runs kick off June 16 and you can find out all the pertinent data by looking at the photo above.

Questions?

Contact Bitting at ebitting@coupeville.k12.wa.us.

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Home cooking, flying feet

Posted in Cross Country, tagged CHS Wolves, cross country, Fort Casey, home meet, Noelle Western, Northwest League on September 27, 2023| Leave a Comment »

George Spear flies down the trail Wednesday at Fort Casey State Park. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

The rain stayed away, but the top times flowed down.

Putting three runners in the top seven Wednesday, the Coupeville High School boys’ cross country team defended its home turf at Fort Casey State Park, winning a six-team home meet.

Meanwhile, the Wolf girls, paced by another stellar performance from Noelle Western, pushed Mount Vernon Christian hard, with only nine points separating the two teams in the final tally.

Led by individual champ Evangeline Fikkert, the Hurricane girls finished with 23 points to Coupeville’s 32.

Noelle Western cruises to a 5th place finish.

On the boy’s side of things, the Wolves edged MVC 39-55, though the ‘Canes did have an individual winner in Isaac Betz.

Friday Harbor (73), Orcas Island (86), and Evangel Classical (98) rounded out the team standings.

Lummi Nation also sent runners but didn’t have a full squad.

All the Wolves come off the starting line at the same time.

Wednesday’s meet, the lone home event for Coupeville, played out on a redesigned course covering 5,000 meters.

With retired CHS track coach Randy King on hand to be the official race starter, things kicked off with a big rush, as the girls and boys competed at the same time.

With the weather cooperating, and Coupeville Middle School coach Amber Wyman stepping up to take the reins as race director, it made for a pleasant day all around.

“Great afternoon!!!,” said CHS harrier coach Elizabeth Bitting.

“So many compliments on the beautiful course, wonderful volunteers, shout out to the middle schoolers who stepped up and helped out. Can’t wait for them to run this course next season.”

Volunteers like Sherry Bonacci were invaluable to bringing off a successful meet.

With coaching duties calling to her, Bitting needed someone to run the race, and Wyman knocked it out of the park.

“This was very hard for me to do — give control of my baby to somebody else,” Bitting said with a laugh.

“But Amber is AMAZING and did GREAT!”

Coupeville returns to action this Saturday, Sept. 30, when it travels to the Cedarcrest Golf Course in Marysville for the 16th annual Twilight XC Invitational.

Wednesday results:

GIRLS:

Noelle Western (5th) 24:47.69
Ari Armstrong (14th) 27:41.44
Aleksia Jump (15th) 28:28.76
Erica McGrath (17th) 30:23.69
Reagan Callahan (18th) 30:27.44

BOYS:

George Spear (4th) 19:17.39
Carson Field (5th) 19:32.77
Landon Roberts (7th) 19:41.55
Ezekiel Allen (10th) 20:02.63
Kenneth Jacobsen (13th) 20:18.80
Thomas Strelow (14th) 20:27.07
Nicholas Wasik (25th) 21:47.88
Preston Howard (29th) 22:14.56
Santi Ojeda (30th) 22:17.71
Axel Marshall (31st) 22:30.01
Zach Blitch (43rd) 30:54.28
Damy Giacobbe (44th) 33:52.55

Coupeville Athletic Director Willie Smith ponders the meaning of the universe while tabulating times.

To see more photos from this race, pop over to:

https://www.johnsphotos.net/Sports/CHS-Cross-Country-2023-2024/XC-2023-09-27-at-Ft-Casey/

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Some run, some fun, probably no sun!!

Posted in Cross Country, tagged camp, CHS Wolves, cross country, Fort Casey, Natasha Bamberger on August 26, 2018| Leave a Comment »

She is legend. Natasha Bamberger, a five-time state champ in her Coupeville High School days, is back to coach Wolf cross country. (Dawnelle Conlisk photos)

Wolves (clockwise, starting bottom left) Danny Conlisk, Chris Ruck, TJ Rickner and Sam Wynn hang out at Camp Casey before the start of cross country camp.

And the weeds whisper, “Run, Forrest, run.”

“After I run, I like to eat a sandwich this big!”

Alana Mihill (red hoodie) and Catherine Lhamon join their teammates.

Summer is cruising to a close, and fall sports are fast approaching.

Combining the best of both seasons, Coupeville High School cross country runners headed off Sunday to running camp.

The event, held just down the road at Camp Casey, features an appearance by running legend Doris Brown Heritage, who has been inducted three times into a national Hall of Fame.

She won the International Cross Country Championships five years running (1967-1971) and competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

CHS is restarting its cross country program after a two-decade absence, and the camp gives coach Natasha Bamberger and her runners a chance to work alongside long-established programs.

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They blazed the trail!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, Hall o' Fame, tagged Basketball, CHS Wolves, Fort Casey, Hall of Fame, Marlene Grasser on July 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Coupeville High School girls hoops tipped off in 1974. (Photos courtesy Martha Folsom)

The ’74-’75 squad, which had to go to Fort Casey to practice.

The high scoring ’86-’87 Wolves, the first CHS girls hoops team to make the playoffs. (Photo courtesy Sherry Roberts)

They were the pioneers.

Today, 43 seasons into its existence, the Coupeville High School girls basketball program is flying high.

The current Wolves have won three straight Olympic League titles (while going 27-0 against conference rivals), and the program has produced numerous big-time stars and hung several state tourney banners over the years.

But all of that success had to start somewhere, and today we’re here to honor two squads which made everything possible.

As we swing open the doors to the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, we welcome the 1974-1975 and 1986-1987 Wolf girls hoops teams.

After this, you’ll find them hanging out up at the top of the blog, under the Legends tab.

Why those teams?

Because the ’74-’75 squad was the first modern-day team in school history and the ’86-’87 sharpshooters were the first to ever make the playoffs.

With Title IX having shaken things up (finally) in 1972, CHS began to open up opportunities to female athletes.

The school, which already had a strong basketball tradition on the boys side of the court, launched its girls program in 1974 … and promptly sent the players down the road.

While the boys hoops stars practiced in the same gym in which they played their home games, the Wolf girls trekked to Fort Casey for their workouts.

“No heat and the out-of-bounds lines were the walls!,” remembers Martha Folsom.

It wasn’t until 1977 that the Wolf girls finally got a full share of the home gym for practices, but the early road trips didn’t keep players from showing up, as the first squad boasted a full 12-player varsity roster.

While I’m tracking down the history of CHS girls basketball, the ’74-’75 team is still hidden in the shadows a bit.

The Whidbey News-Times elected to not write a single word about that season, and it was only with year two — and the arrival of a new sports writer — that things changed.

So, stat-wise, I haven’t been able to find much yet. But the hunt goes on.

We do have photos and a roster, though, thanks to a school yearbook kept by Folsom.

By the time the ’86-’87 team took the court, the program was more than a decade old and things were starting to take shape.

No Wolf girl topped 150 points in a season until Kristan Hurlburt went off for 263 in 1981-1982.

Two years later Judy Marti set a new mark, pouring in 312 points during her senior season.

Enter the ’86-’87 squad, which scored like no Wolf girls team before it, with two players, Terry Perkins (314) and Marlene Grasser (307) joining Marti in the 300-point club.

Tina Barker (274) just missed making it a trio, while Sarah Powell (141) and Aimee Messner (88) were also scoring threats for a deep, balanced team.

Led by head coach Phyllis Textor, the Wolves finished 15-8 overall, 11-5 in league play, coming within a single win of making it all the way to state in the program’s playoff debut.

The CHS girls finally cracked that barrier in 1998, advancing to the big dance with Willie Smith coaching, before capturing the program’s first state tourney win in 2000.

After that came three state banners (a sixth-place and two eight-place finishes) during Greg Oldham’s tenure, and the Wolf girls have gone back to state as recently as 2016 under David King.

There can be a solid argument made that girls basketball is the most consistently successful sports program at CHS over the past two decades.

But that all started with the athletes we honor today, the ones who broke the playing barrier and the ones who broke the postseason barrier.

So welcome to our little digital shrine.

Inducted together, as teams.

1974-1975 squad:

Brenda Belcher
Suzanne Enders
Martha Folsom
Eileen Hanley
Tammie Hardie
Ann Kahler
Debbie Snyder
Tracy Snyder
Teresa Taylor
Jill Whitney
Janie Wilson
Jean Wyatt

1986-1987 squad:

Tina Barker
Sally Biskovich
Sherry Bonacci
Trudy Eaton
Carol Estes
Marlene Grasser
Aimee Messner
Cheryl Pangburn
Terry Perkins
Sarah Powell

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