Shane Losey played a strong defensive game Friday, including blocking a Bellevue Christian PAT kick. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Where’s Marshawn Lynch when you need him?
An inability to get one yard, twice, killed the Coupeville High School football team on a very chilly Friday the 13th.
Unable to punch the ball in during the second half, despite having first-and-goal from the one-yard line on their opening drive, then third-and-goal from the one on their next possession, the Wolves fell 24-12 to visiting Bellevue Christian.
The Homecoming loss drops CHS to 1-3 in league play, 3-4 overall.
It also adds a new layer of frustration for Coupeville coach Jon Atkins, who has seen his team decimated by injuries which have thrown a wrench into a season which started quite strongly.
Hunter Smith and Sean Toomey-Stout, the team’s leading receiver and rusher, both went down for the season back in week five, and that has limited the Wolves offensive attack since.
Still, Chris Battaglia and Andrew Martin ran strongly Friday, battering through the BC defense — until Battaglia went down with his own foot injury.
While he was able to return late in the game, Battaglia’s absence was huge, as he had carried the ball on four of the previous five plays, tearing off chunks of yardage on the opening drive of the third quarter.
With #23 being attended to on the sideline, the Wolves went to #32, and Martin crushed it, ramming up the middle for nine, six and 22 yards on the next three plays.
The third run came up a single yard short of a touchdown, as a horde of Vikings finally rode Martin to the turf just outside the goal line.
Trailing 16-12 coming out of halftime, CHS seemed poised to regain the lead, sitting on a first-and-goal, with the end zone tantalizingly close.
Only it didn’t happen, as the Wolves started marching straight backwards, with two aborted runs and a holding penalty turning a first-and-goal on the one into a third-and-goal from the 15.
After 10 straight running plays to open the second half, CHS went to the air, only to have back-to-back Hunter Downes passes batted down by defenders at the last second.
Coupeville’s second half death march continued from there, with BC putting together a 16-play, 85-yard scoring drive to bust open the game, followed by the Wolves suffering another disaster at the goal line.
It started with a first-and-goal from the Viking four-yard line, after CHS used a mix of Martin power runs and three Downes to Cameron Toomey-Stout passes to move 70 yards.
In the open field, the Wolves were moving, churning their way to glory. Up close, however, they stalled out.
Three incomplete passes and a run stuffed at the line later, any hopes of a comeback win were gone, and all Atkins could do was shake his head in frustration.
“Two Red Zone scores, we punch those in, we win,” he said. “We have 1,000 pounds on the line. We have to learn to push forward and be a little more nasty. We have to learn how to move that ball.”
Coupeville’s scoring came in the second quarter, as the two teams combined for 25 of the game’s 36 points and changed leads several times.
Bellevue kicker Mark Postma had staked his squad to an early 3-0 lead with a 25-yard field goal hit with enough foot to probably clear from 45 out.
After coming up empty on its first four possessions, Coupeville finally broke through, taking advantage of a fumble recovery deep in Viking territory.
Downes, rolling out at the BC 19-yard line, dropped the ball into the left corner, where Toomey-Stout made a sensational catch, dancing like he was back on the ballet stage he once graced in a production of “The Nutcracker.”
A blind ref shanked Wolf fans by claiming Camtastic had been knocked out at the half-yard line, but Coupeville shook it off with ease.
On the very next snap Toomey-Stout went the opposite way, curling into the right corner, and Downes deposited the ball on his waiting fingertips.
The touchdown toss was the 30th all-time for the senior gunslinger, pulling him within three of Brad Sherman’s CHS career record.
Downes also continued his pursuit of Sherman’s career record for passing yardage (3,613), cracking the 3,000-yard barrier on a 24-yard screen pass to Battaglia late in the first half.
While Toomey-Stout’s touchdown put Coupeville up 6-3, the Wolves PAT was blocked, then the teams exchanged scores in record time.
Bellevue bashed the ball in from three yards out to regain the lead at 10-6, only to watch Matt Hilborn take the ensuing kickoff all the way back.
The Wolf junior plucked the ball out of the air at the 15-yard line, spun into a pack of Viking tacklers, then somehow broke free, did several pirouettes, found a surprise gap in the defense and was off to the races.
Hugging the left sideline, he roared 85 yards to pay-dirt and wham, bam, Coupeville had the lead back as fast as it had lost it.
The Wolves couldn’t keep it, though, with a failed conversion pass limiting them to a 12-10 lead, which vanished right before the half on another short BC touchdown run.
Coupeville saved at least one point when Shane Losey blew through the line and blocked Bellevue’s extra point try. That kept the halftime deficit to what, at the time, seemed like a very manageable 16-12 tally.
Martin, a sophomore wearing the same number #32 his older brother Jacob did before him, had an especially strong game, plucking his first interception of the season.
He also rumbled for 67 yards (unofficially) as a rusher, all in the second half.
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