Cameron Toomey-Stout hit a huge three-ball and played blistering defense Tuesday, spurring Coupeville to its first win of the season. (John Fisken photo)
It would have been easy to get a bit worried.
Playing against Klahowya for the second time in five nights, the Coupeville High School boys’ basketball squad seemed to be stuck on repeat in the early going Tuesday night.
This time they were at home playing in front of a pro-Wolf crowd, but, just like last Friday, CHS couldn’t buy a bucket.
Then, it fell behind 16-2 after one quarter and never fully recovered in a road loss.
Tuesday, however, the Wolves roared back from an early deficit, finally found their shooting touch midway through the second quarter, then pulled away for a convincing 53-41 victory over the Eagles.
The win lifts Coupeville to 1-5 overall, 1-2 in 1A Olympic League play.
It also pulls them into a tie for third-place with Klahowya, a half game out of second.
Things will sit that way for awhile, as the Wolves next four games are non-conference affairs. Add in the Christmas break, and CHS doesn’t play another league game until it hosts Port Townsend Jan. 3.
Getting a win was huge for many reasons, and right at the top was the surge of confidence cracking the win code gives an inexperienced, very thin squad.
Junior Hunter Smith, one of only two returning varsity players, was front and center Tuesday, pouring in a season-high 25, punctuated by four three-point bombs.
He had plenty of help, though, with every player on Coupeville’s short bench coming up big.
The most important basket of the game probably came off of Hunter Downes‘ fingertips, a bucket that was one part talent, one part luck, and all part hex-busting.
Held to just a Smith trey through the game’s first 10 minutes, Coupeville was only in the game because its defense was vigorously contesting everything Klahowya put up.
Trailing 10-3 and in need of a spark, the Wolves got it when Downes put up a short runner.
It caught the rim, bounced straight up a mile in the air, hung motionless for about an hour, then somehow, improbably, plunged straight down through the waiting net.
After that, CHS seemed to relax and started clicking on both sides of the ball.
The Wolves snatched the lead away for the first time, but just for a heartbeat, at 17-14, when Smith nailed a trey from the top of the arc.
Klahowya, a team comprised of sweet shooters, responded immediately with its own three-ball to knot things back up, but the genie was out of the bottle at that point.
Coupeville scored the first half’s final eight points, on two Smith treys wrapped around two free throws from Downes, to stake itself to a 25-17 lead at the break.
Things just got sweeter in the third quarter, despite it being the only stretch where Smith largely ceded the offensive burden to others.
He still pulled off a dazzling three-point play the hard way, beating two Eagles to a loose ball, then bolting past them for a swooping layup while being hit in the head by a defender’s arm.
Draining the free throw (Coupeville was a stronger-than-normal 15-22 at the charity stripe) to complete the play, Smith then turned things over to his comrades.
Five of the other eight Wolves put up points in the third, led by six from a rampaging Brian Shank, as CHS stretched its lead out to 16.
Cameron Toomey-Stout got an assist from the glass, banking home a three-ball of his own, while Downes, Ariah Bepler and Joey Lippo were lights-out at the free throw line.
Once they had the lead up in double digits, the Wolves never let it slip below 10 and coasted in for the win with a mix of buckets set up by smart passes (Lippo dealing to Smith and Toomey-Stout setting up Shank) and consistent free-throw shooting.
Gabe Wynn closed the night with two flawless charity shots, putting an emphatic (if restrained) exclamation point on the W.
While he was happy with a victory of any kind, Coupeville coach Anthony Smith was even happier to see his squad accomplish it by cutting down turnovers, working together and bringing the defensive heat.
He praised Toomey-Stout in particular for his work in relentlessly shadowing Klahowya gunner Sawyer Snope, who had stung the Wolves harshly the first time around.
While Snope hit a few buckets, and was denied one gorgeous trey only by a technicality when it hit the basket support wire before dropping through, he wasn’t able to riddle Coupeville as much this time around.
Hunter Smith’s 25-point performance was backed by Shank (10), Downes (8), Toomey-Stout (5), Wynn (2), Bepler (2) and Lippo (1).
Ethan Spark and Steven Cope didn’t score, but both provided invaluable hustle on the defensive end for the Wolves.
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