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Posts Tagged ‘Klahowya’

One day, a million (tiny) stories!!

Posted in Baseball, Boys Soccer, Softball, tagged , , , , , , on March 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Julian Welling snags a hot shot at first. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Saturday was a busy day, for all of us.

Five Coupeville High School athletic teams took advantage of the nice weather, with three playing on the road.

Meanwhile I was in Maple Valley, deep into a week-long odyssey of helping my sister and her family move back to Whidbey after a 15-year exile on the main land.

At this point, I am running on very little sleep, and still have one more day of non-Coupeville Sports grunt work ahead of me, and Saturday was also short on wins for the Wolves.

So, we’re going to mix things up a bit and make this story a four-for-one special.

That guarantees I uphold my part of our unwritten agreement – that you, the readers, can peruse the previous day’s sports exploits with your morning cereal.

While also getting me to bed sometime before 3 AM in the morning…

So, we’re off.

JV baseball:

The lone Coupeville win Saturday came courtesy of the Wolf young guns, who held on for a 5-3 victory at Vashon Island.

CHS broke open a scoreless game in the top of the fourth, taking advantage of four Pirate errors and a crucial one-out single from Shane Losey to plate four runners.

Another run in the fifth, this one featuring a single from Jacob Zettle and a sac fly from frosh Daniel Olson, capped Coupeville’s scoring.

That was enough for Wolf hurlers Johnny Carlson and Jered Brown, who combined to cruise in with the win.

Coming on in relief in the fifth, Brown was spot-on, striking out five over three innings, including Vashon’s final four hitters.

Zettle, Losey, Olson, Brown and Drake Borden all whacked base-hits in the game, helping the JV nab their first win in three games this season.

Varsity softball:

It started so strongly, but then something went a little haywire.

After crunching four hits and scoring three times in the top of the first, Coupeville’s offense hit a lull, and the Wolves fell 11-3 at Vashon.

The non-conference loss drops the softball sluggers to 2-1 on the season.

The Wolves came off the ferry on fire, with Lauren Rose walking to open things, followed by four consecutive singles off of the bats of Scout Smith, Katrina McGranahan, Veronica Crownover and Hope Lodell.

With McGranahan and Crownover picking up RBIs, things looked great for CHS.

And, while Vashon scraped out two runs of its own in the bottom of the first, the Wolves held on to a 3-2 lead until the bottom of the fourth, when a six-run rally by their hosts took a little bit of the shine off the day.

After putting together four straight hits in the first, the Wolves didn’t collect another hit until Coral Caveness singled in the fourth.

Sarah Wright and Crownover punched base-hits in the fifth, as well, but the rally ended before it began, and an interference call on a Wolf runner derailed any comeback hopes in the seventh.

“Today was just not our day,” said Coupeville coach Kevin McGranahan. “We were a little off all day and never really had an answer for it.

“Vashon hit the ball well all day and they hit the gaps. Our defense had some little errors but all in all it was a good defensive day,” he added. “Today our offense let us down and we paid for it.

“We will see them again at districts and next time we will give them a better game.”

Varsity baseball:

A day after ten-running North Mason, Coupeville was ten-runned by Vashon Island, falling 10-0 in five innings on the road.

The non-conference loss drops the Wolves diamond men to 3-3 on the season.

“Ran into a tough team,” said CHS coach Chris Smith. “Good opponent to see we need to keep working.”

Coupeville put runners on base in four of five innings, but a double play in the first killed their best chance of getting an early rally up and going.

The Wolves were out-hit 9-3, with Vashon tagging three extra-base hits.

Joey Lippo, Dane Lucero and Kyle Rockwell collected Coupeville’s lonely base-knocks, while Wolf hurler Matt Hilborn walked twice.

Varsity boys soccer:

The myth endures.

Klahowya won its 24th straight 1A Olympic League game, blanking Coupeville 5-0 in a game played on Whidbey.

The loss drops the Wolves to 1-1 in league play (they’re tied with Port Townsend), and puts them a game-and-a-half behind the Eagles (3-0), who are seeking a fourth-straight conference title.

Facing a stingy KSS defense, Coupeville was held scoreless for the first time in five games this season, and sits at 2-2-1 overall.

“The first half we kept things close,” said CHS coach Kyle Nelson. “We had a number of good opportunities, and played pretty much even with them, only conceding a counter attack goal late in the half.

“The second half did not go as well;  Klahowya came out a little more aggressive in the second half and we didn’t match it,” he added. “The boys pretty much ran out of gas.”

Still, the first half gives Coupeville hope for the  next time.

“We did see that we can play with them, we just need to do it for the full game,” Nelson said. “I will be looking forward to our rematch with them; I know we can do better.”

JV boys soccer:

Coupeville fell 7-1. And that’s all I know.

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Long day, mixed results!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Jake Pease helped lead the Wolf JV to a win on the road Saturday. The CHS varsity didn’t fare as well. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

There are two ways to look at this.

If we’re being positive, the Coupeville High School boys basketball squad still controls its own destiny as it chases a playoff berth.

If we’re being negative (some would say realistic), the Wolves window of opportunity has really, really narrowed.

After suffering a 52-39 loss at Klahowya Saturday, brought on by a 12-0 Eagles run to close the third, Coupeville sits firmly in third-place in a league which only sends two squads to the postseason this year.

Klahowya, which started its season 0-6, but has now won 10 of 11, sits atop the Olympic League at 5-1, with Port Townsend (4-2) and Coupeville (3-3) on its tail.

No matter how the rest of the season plays out, Chimacum (0-6) is guaranteed to finish in the cellar.

For Coupeville, it comes down to this — there is no margin for error. Lose next Friday at Port Townsend and the Wolves are eliminated from playoff contention.

Saturday’s game was a killer in many ways.

Coming less than 24 hours after the Wolves held a huge anniversary party to celebrate 101 years of CHS basketball, the Saturday matinee was a late addition to the schedule.

It was plugged-in after a snafu with refs caused an earlier game between the two schools in Coupeville to be postponed.

With the change it also went from being a home game to a road game, and the drive home picked up several extra hours when the Port Townsend ferry was cancelled after everyone headed home was already in line at the dock.

The extra time spent driving, and taking two different ferries to get back to Whidbey gave the Wolves, their coaches and fans plenty of time to reflect on what could have been.

While Coupeville never led Saturday, it stayed almost even with the Eagles until Tim Coots went and ruined a chunk of the weekend.

Klahowya’s senior guard buried a three-pointer from the corner, after stumbling over his own feet, right before the halftime buzzer, turning a one-point Eagle lead into a four-point margin.

That was just the warm-up, however.

Hunter Downes knocked down a pretty little jumper in the paint, off of a dish from Hunter Smith, to pull CHS within 27-25 with 3:30 to go in the third quarter, and the stage was set for a nail-biting finale.

Enter Mr. Coots and exit the Wolves.

Klahowya closed the quarter on a game-busting 12-0 run, with Coots throwing down 10 of his game-high 21 during the run.

I would say the Eagles fans went wild, but KSS has serious trouble attracting patrons to its gym, even with a first-place team running and gunning.

When the road fans outnumber the home team’s student section, and there was a drive and ferry ride involved for the visitors, yikes.

Coupeville tried to get back in the game by going to the long-ball in the fourth, as sophomore gunner Mason Grove dropped in a pair of three-balls and Smith added one of his own.

The closest the Wolves could get was 41-34, and then Klahowya blunted the Coupeville run with a put-back off of a rebound and a trey of its own.

The game had started as a back-and-forth affair, with a couple of ties in the first quarter and a stunning mid-air reverse layup dropped in by a high-flying Smith.

Klahowya exited the first quarter with a 16-9 lead, before the Wolves used a successful run at the charity stripe in the second to cut the lead back to one before Coots huge three-ball.

Kyle Rockwell netted three free throws as CHS went 7-8 at the line in the second, while also yanking down a rebound and firing a bullet to Ethan Spark, who knocked down a trey from the top.

Smith paced Coupeville with 16, and finished the night with 761 points in his stellar career. He passed Hunter Hammer (759) for 14th on the Wolf boys career scoring chart.

Spark netted nine and Grove banked in six, while Rockwell (3), Joey Lippo (2), Downes (2) and Cameron Toomey-Stout (1) also scored.

JV makes it rain:

Avenging an earlier loss to the Eagles, the Wolf young guns rode a 26-point performance from Grove and won 52-43.

The CHS sophomore has 294 points in 15 JV games (a 19.6 average) and needs 54 points in the final four games to pass Allen Black (347 points in 2002-2003), who holds the unofficial Wolf JV single-season scoring record.

After playing a quarter in the varsity game, Grove had three quarters left for the night’s second game, so didn’t start.

Without him on the floor, the Wolves turned to Sage Downes and Koa Davison, who combined for eight points as CHS rolled to a 12-9 lead at the first break.

Downes slapped a running layup off the glass, then netted a three-ball, while Davison hauled in a long outlet pass and turned it into three points the hard way.

Stopping on a dime, he let an Eagle fly by, then shot up and laid the ball in while getting whacked around the shoulders. Tack on the ensuing free throw and Davison was golden.

Grove popped into the game in the second and immediately did some damage, dropping in 12 before the halftime break.

Half of that came off of three-balls, while his other three buckets were set up twice by his own steals and once by a rebound and dish from Gavin Knoblich.

Coupeville kept up the pressure in the third, with Jered Brown opening things with a coast-to-coast romp for a bucket, then closing the quarter with a sensationally-smart play.

Bringing the ball up-court with five ticks to play, he kept one eye on the clock and one on his defender, then peeled off said defender at the last moment and whipped a pass to a lurking Daniel Olson.

The steely-eyed frosh let fly, with the ball departing his fingers a mere moment before the buzzer, and the result was nothing but net, driving a stake through the collective hearts of the Eagles (very small) student fan section.

A late run pulled Klahowya from 12 down to just five at 46-41, but Grove had the antidote, hitting back-to-back three balls to seal the win.

Toss in some creative “old man coughing up phlegm” antics from the Wolf varsity players every time an Eagle went to shoot a free throw (which caused them to clank six freebies in a row), and the game was in the books.

Grove’s 26 was half of his team’s total, with Downes (7), Davison (5), Jean Lund-Olsen (4), Jake Pease (3), Olson (3), Dane Lucero (2) and Brown (2) combining to match his output.

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A thriller! A killer! A chiller!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , , on January 16, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Mason Grove tossed in 11 in three quarters Tuesday as the Wolf JV battled Klahowya through two overtimes. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

They saved the best for last.

With the JV boys playing second Tuesday at Klahowya, the young guns put on a show in the longest game of the season.

Playing the kind of game where everyone involved is sorry to see someone have to lose, the host Eagles held off Coupeville 58-56 in a double-overtime thriller that came down to free throws.

Specifically, it was the four shots from the charity stripe which the Eagles netted in the second overtime which provided the final margin.

The Wolves, who got red-hot in the fourth quarter to stage a successful comeback and force extra basketball, fall to 1-3 in Olympic League play, 2-11 overall.

Coupeville didn’t go down easily, however, using a 23-15 run in the final period of regulation to keep things interesting.

With three Wolves — Sage Downes, Jacobi Pilgrim and Mason Grove — combining to score all of their team’s fourth-quarter points, CHS rallied from a 33-25 deficit to knot things up at 48-48.

In the first overtime, the two squads exchanged buckets, with Downes and Pilgrim swishing three-balls while the Eagles knocked down three baskets of the old-fashioned two-point variety.

Still tied at 54-54, the Wolves and Eagles headed to a second four-minute extra period, and Coupeville’s luck finally ran out.

Koa Davison knocked in a bucket for CHS, but Klahowya slid four of its six free throws through the net in the second OT to finally ice the game.

The wild finale capped a game which started off a little slowly.

Klahowya led just 9-6 after the first quarter, held serve at 16-13 at the half, then inched further ahead with a 17-12 surge in the third.

That was when Coupeville turned up the offensive heat, with Downes, who hadn’t scored before that, suddenly raining down nine points in the fourth.

Pilgrim added eight and Grove hit a pair of three-balls to round out the 23-point uprising for the Wolves.

For the game, Pilgrim paced CHS with 14, while Downes dropped in 12 and Grove, who had seven in the fourth quarter of the varsity game, added 11 in three quarters of JV action.

Davison (6), Daniel Olson (5), Jean-Lund Olsen (5), Gavin Knoblich (2) and Jake Pease (1) also scored for the Wolves, who hit 10 three-balls on the night.

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One bad stretch dooms Wolves!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , , on January 16, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Nicole Lester dropped in four points and was a force on the boards Tuesday against Klahowya. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

For two quarters-plus Tuesday, the Coupeville High School JV girls basketball squad was locked in a war with visiting Klahowya.

But then it all slipped away.

A 16-0 third-quarter run by the Eagles, spurred by a shutdown press defense, lifted the visitors to a 41-27 win in a game that felt a lot closer than the score might sound.

The loss drops the Wolf young guns to 2-3 in Olympic League play, 6-9 overall.

Coupeville, which led after the first quarter, knotted things at 16-16 on the opening play of the second half.

Maddy Hilkey cranked up a jumper from the left side and hit nothing but net, causing local fans to lean forward in anticipation.

Even after Klahowya netted a layup and free throw to edge out in front, the Wolves countered with their own freebie off of the fingertips of Avalon Renninger.

With the deficit just a bucket at 19-17, anything seemed possible.

Except it wasn’t.

Frustrated by the Eagles, who launched a back-court trap on them, the Wolves went through an extremely rough stretch for several minutes.

CHS turnovers piled up, with Klahowya turning many of them into breakaway layups, and what was a close game turned into a 35-17 rout as the third-quarter clock headed towards 0:00.

Renninger finally stopped the bleeding, hitting a silky runner in the paint off of a ball tipped her way by Hilkey, and the Wolves showed some grit down the stretch.

Coupeville closed the game on a 10-6 surge, scoring the final two buckets in both the third and fourth quarter.

Better yet, that late run featured four different Wolves — Renninger, Nicole Lester, Ashlie Shank and Genna Wright — banking home buckets.

Wright’s came on a put-back off of a rebound, nice payback after she got her head yanked clean off her neck by a rabid Eagle on a previous play.

So blatant it caused dad Ron to bellow “Hey now!” from the stands, it, nonetheless, failed to generate a foul call from refs who were letting the clock run out as they apparently had dinner reservations they needed to make.

Shank paced the Wolves with eight points, while Renninger (7), Lester (4), Hilkey (4), Wright (2) and Mollie Bailey (2) also scored.

Tia Wurzrainer, Kylie Chernikoff and Julia García Oñoro also saw floor time for Coupeville, with each playing tough defense down in the trenches.

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“Just not in sync tonight…”

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , , on January 16, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   With 725 points, Hunter Smith needs six Friday to move into 15th place all-time on the Coupeville boys career scoring chart. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

This one stings a bit.

Suffering through a cold-shooting night Tuesday, the Coupeville High School boys basketball squad dropped a game it needed and wanted.

Falling 51-37 on the road at Klahowya, the Wolves took a step back, sliding into third-place in the Olympic League.

Coupeville gets a strong chance to bounce back Friday, when it hosts win-less Chimacum on the 101st anniversary of the first hoops game in school history, but that doesn’t lessen Tuesday’s dashed hopes.

“Really just not in sync tonight. Never could get much going,” said CHS coach Brad Sherman. “Not the game we expected, but it is what it is.

“Thankfully we play them three times,” he added. “The series is still up for grabs and we know those are games we are more than capable of competing to win.”

Coupeville drops to 2-2 in league play, 4-10 overall, which leaves the Wolves trailing Port Townsend (4-1, 8-5) and Klahowya (3-1, 7-7). Chimacum (0-5, 0-9) brings up the rear.

The Wolves still have five league games left, however, with a trip back to Klahowya Saturday coming hot on the heels of Friday’s bout with Chimacum.

So, while he would have preferred a win Tuesday, Sherman knows there is still much to be resolved.

“We aren’t even half way done with our league schedule, so yes, that one hurts, but we have to keep our focus on the next one,” he said. “This group of guys is very capable of putting a run together, but they really need to believe it.

“Back to work tomorrow!”

The Eagles never really blew the Wolves out, but just steadily built a lead, turning a 14-9 advantage after one into a 23-13 lead at the half, and a 34-20 bulge headed to the final eight minutes.

In that final quarter, Coupeville held its own, with the two teams ramping up their offenses in a 17-17 battle royal.

Sophomore Mason Grove, popping up for a quarter from the JV squad, nailed a pair of three-balls and a free throw in the final quarter to pace the Wolf attack.

For the game senior Hunter Smith topped CHS with 12 points, running his career total to 725.

He is six points from passing Dan Nieder (729) and Steve Whitney (730) to move into 15th place on the Wolf boys hoops career scoring list.

Ethan Spark dropped in eight in support, while Grove and Joey Lippo knocked down seven apiece and Cameron Toomey-Stout hit a three-ball.

John Hartford led Klahowya with a game-high 18.

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