Hunter Smith hauled in his ninth TD reception Friday, leaving him one shy of Josh Bayne’s school single-season record. (John Fisken photo)
Real life mattered more than wins and losses Friday night.
While the Coupeville High School football team would prefer to have returned from Silverdale with something other than a 45-12 loss to Klahowya, relief over teammate Jacob Zettle’s health was first on everyone’s minds.
The Wolf junior crashed hard while trying to make a tackle in the first quarter and remained down on the field for close to 15 minutes before being removed by medics.
He was strapped onto a backboard and taken to a local ER, where his grandmother Suzanne said doctors found he had a concussion and neck spasms, but, thankfully, no issues with his vertebrae.
Zettle’s injury was one of of least three big ones an already-undermanned Wolf gridiron squad suffered.
Matt Hilborn was rocked on a play late in the game and is believed to have suffered a concussion, while the team’s leading rusher, Jacob Martin, went down in the first quarter with a hand injury.
Klahowya was rockin’ a 67-man roster (CHS, at full strength, runs maybe half that) and the Eagles were looking for some payback after being knocked out of the playoff race with a loss Monday at Port Townsend.
Led by the one-two punch of Gabe Wallis, who scored three touchdowns on the ground, and Dylan Zuber, who had three picks on defense and ripped off a long run for a TD of his own while at QB, the Eagles controlled the game from start to finish.
They had numbers, they had skill and they even had some luck.
Jack Cooper, who doubles as a Klahowya soccer player, nailed a second-quarter field goal that hit the left upright, caught an updraft and spun back to the right for a miracle three.
The lead announcer on the Kitsap Sun live stream that was playing on the internet just about broke his mic as he fell off his seat while marveling at Cooper’s bank shot.
Coupeville’s luck, on the other hand, was nonexistent.
Down 24-0 with the halftime break coming up fast, the Wolves got knifed twice by the refs.
First, Hunter Smith outraced a group of Eagles to the right sideline, skipping nimbly in for a three-yard scoring run, only to see the play waved off on a holding call.
Taking a different tack, he went left on fourth and goal from the eight-yard line, snagged a pass from Hunter Downes and appeared to score for a second time.
It wasn’t to be, however, as the ref ruled Smith down a half-yard shy, giving Klahowya the ball back.
The Eagles rolled the dice one more time and found Lady Luck ready to give them a sloppy kiss, as Zuber artfully danced away from a safety on the final play of the half.
If you thought Coupeville’s luck would change after the halftime show, you would be about 93.2% wrong.
Smith made a sensational snag on a ball from Downes, rambled through several defenders, but couldn’t get past the very last hand in his way and hit the turf at the one-yard line.
And yes, with first and goal from the one, but missing their battering ram in Martin, who was stuck on the sideline, the Wolves somehow then went four and out.
CHS finally found a positive — a bright, glimmering one — when it recovered a fumble on the very next play, which eventually set up a 34-yard touchdown strike from Downes to Smith.
It was Smith’s ninth TD catch of the season, putting him one off of Josh Bayne’s school single-season record.
For Downes, it was scoring toss #13, leaving him five behind Joel Walstad’s record of 18 in one year with two games to play.
Klahowya held firm, though, closing the third with Zuber’s 40-yard-plus scoring run, then opening the fourth with a smash-mouth TD from Eagle Twitter legend James Gherna.
Showing far more class than Port Townsend did when it left its starting offense in while up 50-0 on the Wolves in the fourth quarter, the Eagles went to their back-ups and coasted in for the win.
Coupeville also played its bench for much of the fourth, giving freshmen like Andrew Martin and Dawson Houston valuable field time.
Jake Hoagland and Sean Toomey-Stout hauled in passes, with Toomey-Stout’s being of the 42-yard variety, while Teo Keilwitz garnered his first varsity touchdown to cap Coupeville’s scoring.
The loss drops the Wolves to 1-4 in Olympic/Nisqually League play and 2-6 overall.
Coupeville travels to Chimacum next Friday, then closes at home against Cascade Christian Nov. 5.
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