Arianna Cunningham tiptoes her way to the bucket. (Jackie Saia photo)
Sunny day, rainy night. Sort of.
After a sun-drenched mid-January Friday on the prairie, the Coupeville High School varsity girls’ basketball squad went inside and promptly opened up the heavens, raining down nine three-balls on visiting Darrington.
Peppering the Loggers from every angle, while also playing rock-solid defense, the Wolves romped to a 58-25 win to get to 1-4 in Northwest 2B/1B League play, 4-9 overall.
Coming hot on the heels of a non-conference win Monday at Auburn Adventist Academy, it gives Scout Smith’s hardcourt warriors their first back-to-back wins of the season.
“Shoot like this every game!” (Jackie Saia photo)
The Wolves will try and keep the good times going next week, with a road trip to Concrete Tuesday and a home clash Friday with Orcas Island.
If they come out firing on both ends of the floor like they did Friday, the win streak will only grow.
Coupeville opened the game by forcing a 24-second shot-clock violation on the Loggers first possession, and never looked back, blanking Darrington 15-0 across the first quarter.
Tenley Stuurmans opened the scoring, snagging a rebound and rolling through a mob of defenders to slap the ball back up and in, then the trey explosion began.
Wolf senior sniper Danica Strong, who netted six of her team’s nine three-balls, hit back-to-back longe-range shots, helped set up a jumper for fab frosh Kennedy O’Neill, then looped back around to splash home yet another three-ball.
With sparkplug Arianna Cunningham piling up rebounds and steals, the CHS defense was brutally efficient, with Darrington not scoring until more than a minute into the second quarter.
By that point, the visitors trailed 18-0 after Teagan Calkins opened the frame by knocking down the first of her three treys, and things were just heating up.
Haylee Armstrong and Calkins converted breakaway buckets off of steals, while Strong couldn’t miss from behind the arc, and the Wolves strolled into the halftime break up 29-10.
Just to drive the point home, CHS went on a second 18-0 run, this time to open the third quarter, with the Wolves pushing the lead all the way out to 37 points.
Darrington, fairly scrappy for only having seven active players on its roster, managed to keep Coupeville from triggering the running clock that comes with a 40-point deficit, but not by much.
The Wolves used all 10 of their players in the lopsided win, with everyone contributing.
Late in the game, O’Neill tickled the twines on a pair of picture-perfect jumpers — one set up by a pass from Sydney Van Dyke — while Capri Anter put on offensive rebound back up and in under extreme pressure.
Coupeville’s long-range gunners led the scoring attack, with Strong banking in a game-high 18 points and Calkins hot on her heels with 17 of her own.
O’Neill (6), Armstrong (5), Stuurmans (5), Adeline Maynes (2), Anter (2), Cunningham (2), and Lexis Drake (1) also scored, with Van Dyke crashing to the floor in pursuit of loose balls when she wasn’t setting up her teammates with artful passes.
It was a historical night for Calkins, with “The Red Dragon” moving into the top 30 scorers all-time for a CHS girls’ varsity hoops program which has been going since 1974.
With her performance Friday, she passes Kailey Kellner (339) and Tracy Taylor (350) and sits with 352 points.
No JV game:
Darrington only has one squad, so Alita Blouin’s team didn’t get a chance to play. Instead, they enthusiastically supported their varsity counterparts from the bleachers.
Coupeville’s young guns await their return to the hardwood. (Melanie Wolfe photo)
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