Wolf senior Cameron Toomey-Stout hugs lil’ sis Maya after playing his final game on the CHS gridiron. (Photo courtesy Beth Stout)
Hunter Downes (left) and Jake Hoagland, friends since kindergarten, connected on a record-breaking TD pass. (Photo courtesy Lisa Jenne)
You don’t always get the storybook ending.
That point has been driven home repeatedly for the injury-decimated Coupeville High School football team this fall, and Friday night provided another tear-stained chapter.
On the one hand, Wolf QB Hunter Downes threw for three touchdowns on his Senior Night, with the final one breaking a school career record held since 2003 by current CHS Offensive Coordinator Brad Sherman.
That the record ball, the 34th TD toss flung by Downes, flew exactly 34 yards, then softly dropped into the waiting hands of his friend since kindergarten, Jake Hoagland, can give you goosebumps.
But, this isn’t Hollywood, and even that bit of magic wasn’t quite enough, as the Wolves fell 33-27 to visiting Chimacum.
The loss sends Coupeville, which had almost as many players in street clothes as in uniform, to 1-5 in Olympic/Nisqually League play, 3-6 overall.
With a visit Nov. 4 to state-ranked Cascade Christian (6-0, 8-1) the only game left on the schedule, the Wolves desperately wanted to send their eight seniors out on a high note Friday.
And, despite playing without key two-way starters Hunter Smith, Sean Toomey-Stout, Matt Hilborn and Chris Battaglia, Coupeville almost did just that, rallying from an 18-point deficit to have a shot at the end.
Which was kind of surprising, since things did not start out all that well, frankly.
The Wolves couldn’t stop Chimacum’s run game, and couldn’t get their own offense to fire on all cylinders.
Coupeville finished the first quarter with zero yards to its credit, with losses on four plays counteracting what small gains it could muster, and trailed 12-0 at the first break.
That stretched out to 18-0 on the second play of the second quarter, when Cowboy QB Peyton Hundley hit Isaac Purser on a 23-yard scoring strike.
Coming on the heels of a three-yard TD run from Mathew Bainbridge and another Hundley-to-Purser scoring pass, this one a wobbly 33-yarder which barely made it there, Chimacum was clicking, and Coupeville was flailing.
Other than a failure to convert a PAT and two conversion attempts, the Cowboys were golden, it seemed.
Enter Camtastic, who flipped the script in a few huge strides.
Snaring a kickoff on the run, Wolf senior Cameron Toomey-Stout shot forward, cut to his left, shredded the ankles of at least two Chimacum tacklers, then found a new gear and tore down the left sideline.
By the time he slowed down, 85 yards later, Coupeville was finally on the board, and, after Downes drilled the PAT, the momentum of the game began to take a huge turn.
Toomey-Stout broke up a third-down pass on Chimacum’s next possession, accelerating and going airborne to tip the ball free at the last second, forcing the Cowboys to punt.
Picking up positive offensive yardage for the first time all night, the Wolves packaged together a smash-mouth run from Andrew Martin, a 22-yard reverse from Camtastic and a pair of 15-yard penalties by the Cowboy defense to march down the field.
Chimacum was fond of collecting roughing the passer and unnecessary roughness penalties on this night. While that helped Coupeville pick up first downs, the abuse did take a noticeable toll on Downes.
He spent a good deal of the game limping, and had to be removed for several plays after one rough hit left him prone on the turf.
On this drive, though, Downes stayed upright, pegging an 18-yard bomb to Toomey-Stout in the left corner of the end zone for the first of his three TD passes.
Back within 18-14, the Wolves had made a fight of things, and the two teams spent the remainder of the first half counter-punching.
Chimacum dropped a hay-maker on a 60-yard TD run from Bainbridge, before Coupeville responded with a one-two counter.
First Downes popped a short scoring strike over the middle to Teo Keilwitz after a long drive.
While chewing up 70 yards, CHS used two quarterbacks, as Shane Losey slid over to replace Downes after he got knocked out of the game for two plays.
One of those plays was a short bull run by Martin, the other a quick 16-yard pass, with Losey threading the ball between defenders to Hoagland.
Back within four again, the Wolves got a huge emotional burst when a hyped-up Julian Welling tore through the Chimacum line and batted away a Cowboy field goal attempt to end the first half.
But, if the first half was about offense, with Chimacum clinging to a 25-21 lead, the second half turned the spotlight squarely on the defense.
And it was the Cowboy backfield which rose to the occasion, snuffing out three straight Wolf drives, one on a pick in the deepest, darkest corner of the end zone.
Hundley stung his rival at QB on that one, popping the ball into the air, snagging it and holding on to it against all odds as he landed on his back.
The other big stop came on a fourth-and-37 midway through the fourth quarter, after two penalties and two sacks drove Coupeville steadily backwards.
Downes, pulling off a fake punt that every Wolf fan saw coming, pulled the ball up and hit Toomey-Stout in stride, but a Cowboy pulled Camtastic down a mere four yards short of the first down.
With Chimacum having tacked on a short scoring run from Hundley in between those stops, the Cowboys had the ball and a 33-21 lead with less than three minutes to play.
The game was over, and then, it wasn’t, as the fairy tale ending started to script itself again.
Senior lineman Kyle Rockwell is a big, bad man, but one relatively new to the football field.
As he said in his Senior Night farewell, “I would like to thank my friends for continually bugging me and reminding me to talk to my parents about letting me play football, even if it meant for one year.
“Without them bugging me, I would’ve probably never played because I would have stopped asking the first time my dad said no.”
Rockwell is blind in one eye, but after convincing parents Sheldon and Tina to let him take the field, he has delivered.
He blocked a kick against Vashon and then, late, late on Senior Night, knocked the ball free on a running play and landed on it for a ginormous fumble recovery.
With the ball back in his hands and 2:43 left on the clock, Downes limped behind center, and, on his third try, hit pay-dirt, lofting the ball down the left sideline.
Hoagland beat his man by a step, reached to the heavens, and pulled in the record-breaker, two lifelong friends forging one of the great moments in CHS football history.
But, as the fog curled around the edges of the field, and the new, almost-built grandstand — which will debut after these seniors depart — glistened in the moonlight, the last bits of magic dust flickered away across the prairie.
Instead, it was Hundley, dodging the Wolf pass rush on third-and-12 with a minute to play, hitting Bainbridge in stride for a win-clinching 28-yard pickup, who got to celebrate.
He’s a senior, too, and, like his battered Coupeville counterparts, has endured a rough season. Chimacum came in bearing a six-game losing streak, not having won since it beat South Whidbey in week #2.
Sometimes, the “bad guys” get the storybook ending, and, sometimes, they probably deserve it.
For Coupeville’s gridiron Class of 2018 — Welling, Downes, Hoagland, Toomey-Stout, Rockwell, James Vidoni, Tyler McCalmont and the injured Smith — Senior Night didn’t end quite like they wanted.
Doesn’t mean they haven’t had a good run.
They’ve set game, season and career records during their time repping CHS — Smith owns seven of them by himself — and they walked off their home field Friday connected by the game they play and by friendship.
Somewhere, down the road, whether it’s six months or at their 10-year reunion, they will look back and they will remember the good times — the big plays, the wins, the inside jokes — more than the injuries and losses.
They were Wolves, every step of the way, and they did their families, their school, and themselves, proud.
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