Coupeville freshman Aiden O’Neill celebrates his first high school interception. (Brenna Silveira photo)
Hide the women and children, cause Dominic Coffman is killin’ folks up in here.
Hitting would-be tacklers hard enough to knock their souls into the next realm, the Coupeville High School senior crashed and banged his way to a four-touchdown night Thursday.
Scoring three different ways — on the ground, through the air, and while playing defense, Coffman sparked the Wolf gridiron squad to a 48-6 demolishing of visiting Bellingham before a sellout crowd.
And the butts were in the seats despite the game being bumped a day early thanks to a ref shortage in the region.
The non-conference victory, coming against a 2A school, lifts 2B Coupeville to 5-1, riding a four-game winning streak as they plan for the longest, and most-dangerous trip of the season.
The Wolves hit the road next Friday, Oct. 14 to travel 140+ miles to Leavenworth to clash with 1A Cascade, which is 5-0 heading into a game with Cashmere.
It’s a rematch for Coupeville against a team which beat them 42-13 on Whidbey last year, though this year’s Wolves are not quite last year’s Wolves.
This time around, CHS, which has three players with eight or more touchdowns — Scott Hilborn, Tim Ursu, and Coffman — has outscored its foes 228-90 and seems to be clicking on all cylinders.
That was certainly the case against Bellingham, with the Wolves rolling up their 48 points in just the first 20 minutes of game time.
Coupeville, despite repping a much-smaller school, had bigger, faster, and much-stronger players than the Bayhawks brought to town.
Bellingham is 2-4 this season, playing an independent schedule during a rebuilding phase, and the Wolves feasted on a foe which couldn’t slow them down.
Hilborn almost broke away for a touchdown on the opening kickoff but settled for scoring on an even more dramatic play a minute or so later.
Wolf quarterback Logan Downes lofted a pass over the Bellingham defense, allowing Hilborn to run past the Bayhawks, then dive while pulling in the falling football.
The 24-yard scoring strike was the first of two touchdowns on the night for Hilborn, pushing his team-leading total to 10.
Tack on a Daylon Houston PAT, and the Wolves were up 7-0 less than two minutes into the game.
Things would not get better for Bellingham.
Coupeville immediately forced a three-and-out thanks to William Davidson and Hilborn savagely taking down Bayhawk runners, then delivered the night’s most giddily violent play.
Taking over at Bellingham’s 36-yard line, Downes handed the ball to Coffman, then looked away so he wouldn’t have to witness the carnage.
Two Bayhawk defenders hit Coffman on his second step, only to have the Dominator flex every muscle in his body and knock both Bellingham players on their keisters.
The resulting bang could be heard in neighboring states, prompting several government officials to question whether a nuke had gone off in the region.
Back on the turf at Mickey Clark Field, Coffman ran straight through several more Bayhawks, shedding tackles and shredding psyches.
Bull-rushing his way to the back of the end zone, he completed the kind of mind-melting power run not seen since former Wolf great Ian Barron used to hit people so hard his own teammates politely declined the opportunity to try and tackle him during practices.
B is for Bellingham, but B is also for bruise, and there will be a lot of the latter in the former tomorrow.
Dominic Coffman? He’d rather run through you than around you. (Bailey Thule photo)
The Bayhawks had their one bright moment of the night in the aftermath, blocking Coupeville’s PAT before driving methodically down the field for their only score.
It came on a short fourth-down run from rugged sophomore Tyler Frost, who churned away all game, though usually with four or five Wolves hanging all over his 230-pound body.
If Bellingham could have frozen time, that moment, when it trailed 13-6, would have been worth remembering.
But the clock waits for no Bayhawk, and the Wolves bit back hard.
Ursu brought the ensuing kickoff back to midfield, and two plays later Downes tossed a 50-yard TD pass to Coffman, with freshman Chase Anderson tacking on the extra point.
If 20-6 looked nice after one quarter of play, 48-6 at the half looked even better.
Fab frosh Aiden O’Neill picked off a pass to open the second quarter, followed by the Wolves scoring on three of the next four snaps.
The only non-scoring play was a “modest” 25-yard run from Coffman, crushing fools with every step.
Otherwise, it was all “celebrate in the end zone, all the time” for the Wolves.
Hilborn zigged and zagged his way to a 45-yard scoring run, Coffman forced a fumble and returned it for Coupeville’s first defensive TD of the year, and a pack of Wolves converged on the Bellingham ballcarrier to net a safety.
In between, freshman Ezra Boilek bashed a kickoff through the end zone for a touchback, earning big kudos from his teammates and Wolf assistant coach Bobby Carr.
Coupeville actually scored again immediately after the safety, only to have a long TD pass negated by a penalty.
Sighing deeply, the Wolves said, “Fine, we’ll work for it,” and used a six-play drive to chip some time off the clock before Coffman plunged in from three yards out to make it 40-6.
The Wolves wrapped up their offensive firepower show with a final touchdown with a hair under four minutes to play in the first half.
Downes did most of the work, scrambling for 49 yards on third-and-10, going down right at the one-yard line.
That allowed sophomore Johnny Porter a chance to stroll in from one yard out on the next play, notching his third touchdown of the season as the Wolf line drove Bellingham’s defense off the field and into the nearby bushes.
Toss in Coupeville’s first two-point conversion of the season, on a pass from Downes to Ursu, and the scoreboard was in full melt-down mode.
Bellingham tried to salvage a little self-respect on the final drive of the half, but Coupeville’s defense was unwilling to relent.
Mikey Robinett blew up a runner in the backfield, Hilborn crushed a Bayhawk a millisecond after he yanked a bad snap off the ground, and Jonathan Valenzuela sacked Bellingham’s QB on fourth down.
With the game a rout, the second half was all about a running clock getting the visitors back on the bus and headed home to the big city.
Coffman and Ursu both collected interceptions, though what should have been a pick-six for Ursu was denied thanks to one of his teammates getting caught delivering a chop block to a Bayhawk.
As the Wolf faithful celebrated, even with another day of school and work looming, CHS head coach Bennett Richter basked in the afterglow.
He got every player in uniform into the game Thursday and won on wife Megan’s birthday.
As the stadium lights turned off overhead, Richter’s smile lit up the darkness.
“This? This is fun!”
And then he was off to plan for Cascade.
Wolves (l to r) William Davidson, Mikey Robinett, Logan Downes, and Zane Oldenstadt enjoy a big win. (Michelle Glass photo)
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