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Coupeville High School boys tennis coach Ken Stange needs more company. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

At this rate, bus rides may get a little lonely.

A week into practice for a new season, Coupeville High School boys tennis coach Ken Stange has the smallest roster of his 16-year tenure.

Seven athletes to be exact – five seniors, one junior, and one sophomore – which is troublesome when the Wolves need eight to field a full varsity team.

Coupeville’s netters are set to compete in the Emerald City Conference for a second year, but may have trouble filling out the required matches in league play.

The ECL plays a varsity format of two singles contests and three doubles bouts.

As it stands now, the Wolves would have to forfeit a slot each match, most likely at #2 singles.

Starting down 1-0 every match would make life tougher in an already highly-charged league.

The ECL is considered the best 1A boys tennis league in Washington, with private schools heavyweights like University Prep and Seattle Academy accounting for the majority of state champs in recent years.

Still, the Wolves held their own last year, claiming fourth-place in the eight-team league.

While all of Coupeville’s other sports teams are part of the North Sound Conference, only two of six schools in that league have boys tennis programs.

The other is South Whidbey, and the next-door neighbors both hooked up with the ECL, which is otherwise comprised of Seattle-area private schools.

With school opening Tuesday and Coupeville’s first match set for Sept. 11, Stange is still hopeful at least one more tennis player will surface.

So, put the word out to any CHS male in grades 9-12.

If they have prior experience, great.

If not, Stange, a noted net guru, is ready and willing to teach the game.

When asked what he was looking for in a player at the moment, the CHS coach kept it simple.

“A pulse.”

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Avalon Renninger is a vital part of Wolf girls tennis and basketball, the two most-successful CHS athletic programs during the Coupeville Sports days. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The girls rule Coupeville High School.

And before you offer an argument, it’s right there in black and white.

This blog launched August 15, 2012, which means it’s been in place for seven complete school years at this point.

In that time, the 10 CHS athletic teams which keep win/loss records have combined to post 19 winning seasons, with 14 of those coming from female athletes.

That’s 73.6%, so the argument is more than done (at least at this moment in time).

Those 10 sports (we’re not counting track or cross country, which operate in their own world of score-keeping) include five girls teams and five boys squads.

On the girls side, all five sports have at least one winning season during the run of Coupeville Sports, while three of the five boys teams have yet to break .500 between 2012-2013 and 2018-2019.

The last seven years have seen Coupeville compete in three different leagues.

Two final years in the 1A/2A Cascade Conference were followed by four years in the Olympic League, then the 2018-2019 school year kicked off the 1A North Sound Conference.

The years spent with Klahowya, Port Townsend, and Chimacum in the Olympic League were the sweet spot, as CHS captured the most league wins of any of the four schools, while claiming 14 of its 19 winning seasons.

Back in the company of private schools like King’s and Cedar Park Christian this past year, the Wolves took a step back, percentage-wise, but still claimed three winning campaigns.

That was one more than CHS totaled across its final two years of being hammered by Archbishop Thomas Murphy and Co. in the old Cascade Conference.

Looking at the results, there are several things which emerge.

The two CHS programs with the highest winning percentages from 2012-2013 to 2018-2019 — girls tennis and girls basketball — only had one coach during that time period.

Ken Stange, who has also guided boys tennis to the fifth-best mark, was already in place long before I left the Coupeville Examiner to start this blog, while girls hoop guru David King was hired right as it began.

Girls tennis holds down the #1 slot, despite taking a step back the past two seasons, while volleyball and softball are rising up the rankings, with each having posted three-straight winning seasons.

Overall, counting league and non-league clashes, Coupeville has compiled a 482-667 record during my blogging days. That’s a .419 winning percentage.

Better than a lot of schools, but no one is going to call us a state powerhouse anytime soon.

As we head into a second season in the North Sound Conference, with the possible promise of a long-anticipated return to 2B a year from now, my hope is for the wins to keep trending upward.

If nothing else, that makes my job easier, and making my job easier is priority #1.

It’s not? Well, it should be.

 

Breakdown by sport:

 

Girls Tennis:

School Year: W/L:
2012-2013 9-3
2013-2014 6-7
2014-2015 11-3
2015-2016 10-3
2016-2017 6-3
2017-2018 7-8
2018-2019 2-7
(51-34) .600

 

Girls Basketball:

School Year: W/L:
2012-2013 6-16
2013-2014 10-13
2014-2015 15-7
2015-2016 16-6
2016-2017 15-6
2017-2018 8-14
2018-2019 9-10
(79-72) .523

 

Baseball:

School Year: W/L:
2012-2013 10-12
2013-2014 14-11
2014-2015 9-10
2015-2016 10-12
2016-2017 11-9
2017-2018 15-6
2018-2019 7-14
(76-74) .507

 

Softball:

School Year: W/L:
2012-2013 6-16
2013-2014 8-20
2014-2015 7-12
2015-2016 9-11
2016-2017 19-5
2017-2018 12-9
2018-2019 15-10
(76-83) .478

 

Boys Tennis:

School Year: W/L:
2012-2013 4-4
2013-2014 0-7
2014-2015 4-5
2015-2016 5-3
2016-2017 5-8
2017-2018 6-7
2018-2019 8-6
(32-40) .444

 

Volleyball:

School Year: W/L:
2012-2013 4-13
2013-2014 3-12
2014-2015 1-11
2015-2016 6-10
2016-2017 11-6
2017-2018 13-5
2018-2019 11-5
(49-62) .441

 

Girls Soccer:

School Year: W/L:
2012-2013 1-16-0
2013-2014 2-14-0
2014-2015 6-7-1
2015-2016 6-7-3
2016-2017 8-7-1
2017-2018 8-9-0
2018-2019 2-12-1
(33-72-6) .324

 

Boys Soccer:

School Year: W/L:
2012-2013 3-14-0
2013-2014 5-10-2
2014-2015 3-11-0
2015-2016 5-9-1
2016-2017 4-11-1
2017-2018 7-9-2
2018-2019 6-10-0
(33-74-6) .319

 

Football:

School Year: W/L:
2012-2013 2-9
2013-2014 4-5
2014-2015 5-5
2015-2016 1-9
2016-2017 3-7
2017-2018 3-7
2018-2019 3-6
(21-48) .304

 

Boys Basketball:

School Year: W/L:
2012-2013 1-21
2013-2014 3-17
2014-2015 7-13
2015-2016 9-11
2016-2017 3-17
2017-2018 7-13
2018-2019 2-16
(32-108) .229

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CHS tennis ace Mary Milnes loves the sunshine, but she’d also love to get to play a real match. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

Avalon Renninger gets limbered up for dropping wicked backhands.

Cecilia Camarena is one of several Wolves ready to make their hard-court debut.

Emily Fiedler is ready to lunge into a new season.

Girls tennis still exists at Coupeville High School.

It might not seem that way recently, as the netters have been largely relegated to the sidelines while other Wolf spring sports programs garner the spotlight.

A rain-out cost CHS tennis an early-season non-conference match, and, by the time they take the court Wednesday, Mar. 27, hosting King’s in the season and league opener, other sports will have a huge head start.

Barring weather issues or other shenanigans, boys soccer will have seven games under their belt, baseball will be playing its seventh game that same day, softball will have six games on the win/loss record, and even track and field will have two meets in the books.

With very few non-league options out there this spring, the Coupeville netters have a pared-down nine-match schedule, facing each of their four North Sound Conference foes — South Whidbey, Friday Harbor, King’s and Granite Falls – twice.

So, the pics above are both a reminder Wolf netters are still hard at work, and that soon, they will get to play someone other than their own teammates.

Hopefully.

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Veteran CHS tennis coach Ken Stange is recovering from spinal fusion surgery after a nasty fall. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Ken Stange has fallen, but you can help him get back up.

The longtime Coupeville High School tennis coach is recovering from spinal fusion surgery to repair an L1 vertebrae fracture suffered in a nasty fall off a ladder.

The good news is doctors tell Stange he can eventually be back on the tennis court, both as a coach and player.

The bad news is during much of his recovery, he won’t be able to work.

After many years as a teacher, Stange purchased Bailey’s Corner Store in Clinton in 2015.

One of Whidbey’s top tennis players, he has taken the lessons learned from his own on-court action and used them to guide the Wolf netters.

With 27 seasons in the book (14 years with the CHS boys and headed for year #14 with the girls this spring), he is the second longest-tenured active head coach in Coupeville.

Stange trails just Randy King, who put in 20 seasons with Wolf boys basketball and is headed towards a 14th year of running CHS track.

To offer a helping hand to Coupeville’s net guru, pop over to:

https://www.gofundme.com/ken039s-fusion-fund

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Drake Borden shared MVP honors as CHS tennis brought its season to an end with an awards banquet. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

Jaschon Baumann (left) and Tiger Johnson were hailed for playing all four years.

Thus endeth the fall.

Coupeville High School boys tennis put a final bow on the season Thursday, handing out letters and awards at a season-ending banquet.

First-year player James Wood led the way, copping Most Improved and Most Inspirational, while Drake Borden and Jakobi Baumann shared MVP honors.

Mason Grove and Jakobi Baumann were hailed as Captains, while Jakobi, twin brother Jaschon Baumann and Tiger Johnson received four-year awards for making the complete run with Wolf coach Ken Stange.

 

Varsity letter winners:

Andrew Aparicio
Jakobi Baumann
Jaschon Baumann
Drake Borden
Jacob Burke
Zach Ginnings
Mason Grove
Tiger Johnson
Thane Peterson
Koby Schreiber
Harris Sinclair
James Wood

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