Brady Sherman (in white t-shirt) was one of many Wolves who came up big Tuesday against Granite Falls. (Photo courtesy Brad Sherman)
It was a party on the prairie.
Finally playing at home for the first time after opening the season with three straight away from Whidbey, the Coupeville Middle School boys’ basketball teams made the gym jump Tuesday afternoon.
With the bleachers jammed with fired-up fans, former Wolf hoops star Daniel Olson making his debut as a ref, and a host of big-name Cow Town hoops icons like Sherry Bonacci, Katie Smith, and Tina (Lyness) Joiner on hand to support various sons and nephews, CMS won two of three against visiting Granite Falls.
And that came despite the Tigers bringing a full cheer squad, in uniform and dropping synchronized chants, to a middle school rumble. Which might be the first time I’ve seen that happen.
Outside it was raining, but inside, the only thing falling from the heavens was the occasional three-ball.
How the day played out:
Level 1:
Kamden Ratcliff was feeling it.
Dropping in 21 points — a season-high for any Wolf player — the three-ball terror sparked the Wolves to a 44-34 win, helping his squad nab its first victory of the season.
Now 1-3, CMS found its groove all afternoon long after collecting several razor-thin defeats during the road trip.
Ratcliff pumped in eight points across the game’s first seven minutes, including nailing a pair of long-distance treys, but Granite went to the opening break up 15-10 thanks to a well-balanced offense.
Cue the big beat down, as Coupeville’s top squad put together a nearly flawless, and definitely game-busting, 19-2 run across the second frame.
Granite, which had hit shots from multiple angles in the first quarter, suddenly couldn’t buy a bucket, largely thanks to a scrambling, aggressive Wolf defense.
With the ball back in their hands, the hometown heroes ran, and converted on their breakaways, with River Simpson, Darius Stewart, Diesel Eck, and Ratcliff all slapping home buckets, many off of steals.
CMS really put the hammer down late, stretching its advantage out to 29-17 thanks to pinpoint passing from Aiden Wheat and another rainbow off of the fingertips of Ratcliff.
Wheat, channeling a young John Stockton, had assists on back-to-back plays, delivering perfect set-ups to Stewart and Simpson, the ball zipping through a teeny-tiny hole in the defense.
Then, before a frazzled Granite squad could catch its breath, the Wolves closed the half with a wild play in which Eck snagged a rebound and fed Stewart, who kicked the ball back to Ratcliff, circling out around the half-court line.
One eye on the clock as the final seconds flew away and one eye on the basket, he launched a high, looping three-ball from about the locker room, nodding ever so slightly as it splashed home to drive the final stake through the collective hearts of the Tigers.
Granite did come back out for the second half, and did put up a sustained fight, but the Wolves had an answer for everything their visitors threw at them.
Trey Stewart tickled the twines on a three-ball of his own in the third, while Simpson was a wild man on defense, and Gracen Joiner sank a gorgeous turnaround bank shot to beat the buzzer.
Coupeville went up by as many as 17 in the fourth, before Granite closed on a 9-2 run to make the final score seem just a little closer than it really was.
Ratcliff’s season-high 21 was backed by Simpson (9), Eck (5), Trey Stewart (5), Joiner (2), and Darius Stewart (2), while Colton Ashby, Xander Beaman, Jacob Lujan, and Wheat rounded out the lineup.
Level 2:
Coupeville took a haymaker, shook it off, and proved to be the tougher team down the stretch.
While Granite closed the first half with what could have been a crippling 10-0 run to snatch away the lead, the Wolves regrouped, turned up the defensive heat and held on for a 28-27 nailbiter of a win.
The most successful CMS squad so far, RayLynn Ratcliff’s squad improves to 3-1 at the halfway point of the campaign.
To get there, the Wolves benefited from a big-time performance from big man Les Queen, who knocked down nine of his game-high 13 points in the second half, while also swatting away shots left and right until he convinced Granite to stop trying to drive into the paint.
Coupeville jumped out to an 8-3 lead after one quarter, with Nico Strong knocking down four points, before stretching the lead out to 12-6 midway through the second after Brady Sherman drilled a jumper with a couple of dudes in his face.
What followed was the one dry spell for the Wolves, as Granite went on its torrid tear to reclaim a 16-12 lead at the halftime break.
To which the Wolves said, not today, not in our gym.
Queen and Xander Flowers proved to be a potent pair, outscoring the Tigers 11-4 by themselves in the third, with both CMS stars pounding away down low in the paint.
Up 23-20 heading into the final frame, the Wolves saw their lead get down to one twice but never let the visitors slip past them.
With the game on the line, Queen and Sherman both came up with big defensive plays, with the former rejecting a Granite shot with under a minute to play and the latter yanking a rebound away from a foe at a crucial moment.
While Queen topped the Wolves with his 13 points, Flowers (7), Sherman (4), and Strong (4) added plenty of support.
Also coming up big in the spotlight were Abel O’Neil, Henry Purdue, Brayden Grinstead, Mario Martinez, and Hayden Maynes.
Level 3:
A little better luck at the free throw line, and Coupeville would have had the clean sweep.
Unfortunately, the Wolves finished just 1-10 at the charity stripe in a game in which they lost 17-15.
Not that Granite had much more luck on its freebies, but the Tigers slipped in a couple of late layups to break open a 13-13 tie, then held off a furious final charge from CMS, which drops to 1-2 on the season.
Liam Stoner slashed to the hoop for a bucket to cut the margin back to two with mere seconds to play, and Coupeville had a chance at the very end to force the tie.
But a rebound went into a heaving mob of players, and while the Wolves came away with the carom, there was nowhere for the man with the ball to go as he was pinned under a crush of Tigers as the clock ran out.
Neither team had much luck shooting in the early going, with Granite going without a field goal for the game’s first eleven-and-a-half minutes yet still managing to eke out a 3-3 tie up to that point.
Trailing 3-0 at the end of the first quarter, and 7-3 at the half, the Wolves evened things up at 9-9 in the third quarter as Logan Flowers pulled off back-to-back buckets on drives where he rumbled right through the heart of the defense.
The final frame provided the bulk of the offense, as the teams combined for 14 of the 32 points scored in the affair.
Granite went up by four, Coupeville gunner Logan Dees responded with consecutive buckets off of a spin through the paint and a soft jumper, then the visitors found just enough scoring late to snatch victory away.
Flowers finished with a team-high six points, while Dees and Stoner rattled the rim for four apiece. Luke Blas, the only Wolf to hit a free throw in the game, rounded out the scoring.
Also seeing floor time for the Wolves was Oliver Miller, LJ Schultz, Burke Winger, Jack Bailey, Dom Durbin, Alton Hansen, Gabe Reed, Vincent Alguire, and Jon Driscoll.
Up next:
Coupeville takes a few days off, then hits the road Dec. 2 for its final road trip, but just down to Langley to play South Whidbey.
After that, the Wolves close with home tilts against Lakewood (Dec. 4), Sultan (Dec. 8), and South Whidbey (Dec. 15), then turn the gym over to the CMS girls.
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