Ethan Spark banged home four goals Saturday — all before halftime — in an 11-4 Coupeville win. (John Fisken photo)
With prom just hours away, the Wolves were already dancing Saturday morning.
Raining down goals from every direction — 10 of them in just the first-half alone — the Coupeville High School boys’ soccer squad had plenty of chances to skip, twirl, jump into each others arms and cavort across the pitch en route to an 11-4 thrashing of visiting Chimacum.
The lopsided win brought the Wolves to 2-3 in Olympic League play, 5-7-1 overall.
It also helped them clinch third-place in the four-team league (they could still tie Port Townsend record-wise, but the RedHawks own the tiebreaker) and punched their ticket to the playoffs.
Coupeville will play a “home” loser-out game Thursday, May 5 at Oak Harbor High School’s stadium against the #4 team from the Nisqually League (either Bellevue Christian or Seattle Christian).
Win there and they hit the road to play Vashon Island May 7 in another loser-out district game.
Taking advantage of a Cowboy squad that had the minimum 11 players in uniform, none of whom were especially sharp on defense, the Wolves jumped on the board early.
Sophomore Ethan Spark punched in a shot from the right side in the game’s 6th minute, then deflected in another ball less than five minutes later.
Next up was senior scoring leader Abraham Leyva, who notched goals #19 and #20 of the season, with a header and then a spectacular shot on which he slid towards the goalie, before flicking the ball up and over his shoulder.
After that it was a virtual parade of goals, with Zack Nall, Zane Bundy, Andre Avila and William Nelson all finding the back of the net.
In between their scores, Spark, who was having himself quite a day stealing the spotlight on Senior Night, banged home two more goals.
His four scores on the afternoon doubled his season output, broke a tie with Bundy and Nelson, who each have five this season, and made mom Kali Barrio scream at an octave previously not heard.
With the game well in hand, CHS coach Kyle Nelson did his best to keep things competitive while not overly embarrassing Chimacum by either piling on more goals or merely playing keep-away.
With freshman Brian Roberts making his varsity debut in goal, senior Connor McCormick moved out of the net and played up front in the second half, as did some defenders like Cody Menges.
With a mandate that any second-half goals had to be set up by a crossing shot, Coupeville added a final score when Leyva set the ball up perfectly for Menges to knock home.
The game was the final one on the CHS pitch for seniors Jose Marcos, Bundy, Leyva, Menges, Avila, Taylor Chiles, McCormick and Loren Nelson.
Fellow seniors Sebastian Davis, Tanner Kircher, Garrett Compton and Beauman Davis were all out for various reasons, but they and senior manager Sebastian Wurzrainer were also honored before the game in a ceremony narrated by junior booter Nick Dion.
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