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Posts Tagged ‘Klahowya’

One day, two matches, all the emotions!!

Posted in Boys Tennis, tagged , , , , , on October 5, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Jaschon Baumann pulled off “the win of the season” to keep Coupeville’s hopes of repeating as league champs alive for an extra hour. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Coupeville High School boys tennis coach Ken Stange has been doing this gig for a long time — 25 seasons over 13 years — but Thursday afternoon he rode the roller-coaster of feelings in a way rarely seen.

One second, he was bouncing with joy, high-fiving his players as he sprinted by.

The next, he was hunched over, trying to mentally will his netters through every gut-wrenching point.

Flashes of irritation tempered by another explosion of fist-pumping ecstasy.

And, finally, hard-earned acceptance, as Coupeville’s run at a third-straight Olympic League title ended by the narrowest of margins.

Even then, though, a flush of pride on his cheeks as  the last two players on the court, young guns Zach Ginnings and Drake Borden, rallied to pull out a final win even after the day’s second team match, and the title, were lost.

“We did not go down easy!,” Stange softly muttered, and then he wryly smiled and went off to finally have some dinner after one of the longest, and most action-packed days, in CHS tennis history.

Thanks to an earlier match being rained out, the Wolves and visiting Klahowya played two matches in one day Thursday (using pro sets instead of the normal best two-of-three-sets format), and the stakes couldn’t have been higher.

Lose both, or split, and Coupeville’s two-year run as the big dog was over.

Sweep the day and, barring a complete collapse against league doormat Chimacum in the coming days and the Wolves would howl one more time.

With action hopping on four courts at once, both coaches juggling their lineups (and Stange giving his own impassioned version of a “Win one for the Gipper” speech at the start), things got wild.

In the opening match, junior Jaschon Baumann played his heart out at #3 singles, tipping the scales in favor of Coupeville and cinching a 4-3 win.

“The win of the day! The win of the year! The win of your life!!,” thundered a jubilant Stange as he came dangerously close to grabbing Baumann and carrying him over his head, Rocky-style, through the parking lot.

With that victory, the Wolves joined 2A North Kitsap, an undefeated juggernaut, as the only schools to knock off Klahowya in 12 matches this season.

It also ramped up the stakes on the day’s second match, and the two squads went at it in a pitched battle, as fans, including Coupeville football players stopping by after practice to root for their classmates, bounced from court to court.

In the end, Klahowya’s depth — it features last year’s fourth-place finisher at the state tourney and a pair of brothers who spent the past four years honing their tennis game in England — was too much.

A win at #2 doubles, which came down to a nerve-wracking tiebreaker, carried the day as the Eagles rebounded for their own 4-3 win.

With the split, KSS (4-1 in league play, 11-2 overall) recaptures the conference title it last won in 2014.

Coupeville, which sits at 2-2, 3-6, has four matches left, including two league tilts with Chimacum, then will host the conference tourney Oct. 21.

Complete Thursday results:

Match 1:

1st Singles — Tiger Johnson lost to Taylor Fite 8-0

2nd Singles — Nile Lockwood lost to Jacob Kraft 8-0

3rd Singles — Jaschon Baumann beat Drew Kraft 8-4

1st Doubles — William Nelson/Joey Lippo beat Morgan Seidel/William Stewart 8-0

2nd Doubles — Nick Etzell/Mason Grove lost to Joe Bowman/Nick Hytinen 8-6

3rd Doubles — Jakobi Baumann/Pedro Gamorra beat Parker Short/Carson Short 8-5

4th Doubles — Drake Borden/Zach Ginnings beat Dominic Westland/Cameron Johnson 8-4

 

Match 2:

1st Singles — T. Johnson lost to Fite 8-0

2nd Singles — Lockwood lost to J. Kraft 8-2

3rd Singles — Jas. Baumann lost to D. Kraft 8-1

1st Doubles — Lippo/Etzell lost to Seidel/Stewart 9-8(9-7)

2nd Doubles — Nelson/Grove beat Bowman/Hytinen 9-7

3rd Doubles — Jak. Baumann/Gamorra beat P. Short/C. Short 8-4

4th Doubles — Ginnings/Borden beat Westland/C. Johnson 8-6

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Mikayla Elfrank is a savage!!

Posted in Volleyball, tagged , , , , , on September 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Mikayla Elfrank, seen here last season, hit like a tornado Tuesday as Coupeville drilled Klahowya in a first-place battle. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

There are a lot of plays in a volleyball season, so it’s usually pretty hard to pick just one as a defining moment.

Until Mikayla Elfrank goes and breaks a girl’s face in half, reaches in and sucks her soul out, and a gym full of people react as if they all just got blasted in the nads.

Game. Set. Match. Play of the year.

When the Coupeville High School senior (accidentally?) crushed a spike off of a Klahowya rival’s skull Tuesday, it hit with so much force the ball almost shot back over the net.

It would be one of the few times the Eagles had a semi-legitimate shot at returning a Wolf volley, as CHS romped to a 25-14, 25-11, 25-15 win and moved into sole possession of first place in the Olympic League.

Intent on defending its title, Coupeville improved to a flawless 2-0 in league play, 4-1 overall.

That puts the Wolves a half game up on Klahowya (2-1, 3-3), while Chimacum (1-2, 1-4) and Port Townsend (0-2, 1-3), which hosts CHS Thursday, are stuck in neutral.

Frankly, there’s a much bigger gap between the Wolves and the Eagles than that half-game margin.

A senior-dominated Wolf squad waited three weeks for its first home match (and then an extra hour-plus, after Klahowya missed its ferry) and came out hyped-up and ready to go on a rampage.

Coupeville has big hitters galore (Elfrank, Katrina McGranahan, Emma Smith, Payton Aparicio and Kyla Briscoe to name a few) and they spent most of Tuesday peppering the Eagles.

Shots zinged off of arms, legs and the floor, and then, late in the second set, Elfrank got nasty.

Now I’ve seen volleyball players get hit in the face before.

I’ve seen Chelsea Prescott explode a girl’s nose with a spike in a middle school game, forcing Coupeville AD Willie Smith to bring out the extra-big roll of blood-absorbing paper towels.

But this? This was a once-in-a-lifetime display of raw power and unrelenting fury.

Sort of like last year when a Wolf softball slugger named Mikayla Elfrank cranked a home-run to straight-away center at Sequim which dented a carnival ride beyond the fence.

In other words, don’t mess with Mikayla. Cause she will mess you up.

Launching herself skyward, Elfrank swung her fist like Thor dropping his hammer on Loki’s head, giving the hapless Eagle in front of her .00001 of a second to blink before her world view exploded into a pretty, pretty fireworks display.

A boom (more like a BOOOOOOOOOOOM) cracked through the gym, the Klahowya player took a tentative step to her right, one to her left, then simply sat down (while her brain told her not to stand back up ever again) and started to laugh.

That not a single drop of blood was shed was remarkable, and to her credit, the Eagle played the remainder of the match, after her teammates gave her an impromptu concussion test.

While she might have been able to follow their fingers with her eyeballs, those peepers also remained wide open the rest of the match, perpetually scanning for any movement from the panther-like Elfrank.

Coupeville and Klahowya play twice more this season, but it was very evident Tuesday the Wolves have the upper hand.

Exactly as CHS coach Cory Whitmore planned it.

“It was a very nice execution of our game plan,” he said. “We were very aggressive on our serving, and very clean with our hits.

“We had a nice balance, low on errors and high on termination.”

The Wolves put many points away without a rally, averaging almost seven service aces a set.

Aparicio led the way, ripping off six, while Lauren Rose (5), Hope Lodell (4) and McGranahan (4) were hot on her heels.

Lodell, who has willingly adjusted her game to fill the considerable gap left by the graduated Valen Trujillo, was the first Wolf to put a serious crimp in the Eagles style.

The senior slugger, operating as “The Surgeon,” ripped off two aces, packaged around a point won by a gorgeous tip from McGranahan, to crack open a semi-close first set.

CHS never trailed by more than a single point at any time in the match, and with Lodell staking them to a 10-7 lead in the first set, the rout was on.

Super sophomore Scout Smith delivered the first set’s most emphatic point, slicing a winner which slid past two defenders and bit the line as it skidded off for a date with the back wall.

After that it was pretty much all winners, all the time, with Emma Smith shredding a girl’s elbow with a laser shot, Briscoe flying forward and poking a ball into a two-inch gap between a pair of Eagles for a point and Elfrank spraying cannon shots in all directions.

The big hits get the headlines, but Rose (10 assists) and Ashley Menges (8) did the dirty work, setting up their teammates, while Maya Toomey-Stout (four digs) and Allison Wenzel chipped in as all 11 Wolves had an impact.

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Absorb the lesson, come back stronger!!

Posted in Girls Soccer, tagged , , , , on September 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   In his first season at the helm of the CHS girls soccer program, Kyle Nelson has the Wolves sitting in second-place in the Olympic League. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

“We found out how high the bar is.”

Coupeville High School girls soccer coach Kyle Nelson was philosophical Tuesday night, softly shaking his head as, behind him, the scoreboard reflected a 9-0 final in favor of visiting Klahowya.

The Eagles have never lost in Olympic League play, with the latest win running their streak to 24 straight, three shy of Coupeville girls basketball, which sits 27-0 all-time.

Klahowya, 1A state champ in 2014, is intent on making a run at a third title (it also won in 1999) and is a top-tier team, with a high-powered offense and a stifling defense.

Now 4-0 in league play, 6-0 overall, the Eagles, who have outscored their foes 38-2, sit a game-and-a-half up on Coupeville (2-1, 4-4).

Port Townsend (1-2, 2-4), which hosts the Wolves Thursday, and Chimacum (0-4, 0-5) bring up the rear in the four-team league.

While absorbing a lopsided defeat is never fun, it can be educational.

“We need to know what we’re aiming at,” Nelson said. “Beating a team 8-0 doesn’t tell you a whole lot. Losing like that, it doesn’t feel good, but it tells you a lot more.

“We put in a team effort, and we’re working on communicating, recognizing things as they happen and responding,” he added. “We are continuing to improve as the season goes, which is the goal.”

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A bump in the road!!

Posted in Boys Tennis, tagged , , , , on September 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Pedro Gamarra teamed with Jakobi Baumann to pick up a win at #3 doubles Friday afternoon. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Ken Stange rolled the dice, and it almost worked.

Stacking his top players in the doubles slots Friday, the Coupeville High School boys tennis coach played the odds against Klahowya, but the Eagles slipped through his grasp.

Pulling out late wins at #2 and #4 doubles, KSS escaped with a 5-2 win on its home courts, putting at least a momentary ding in the Wolves shield.

The conference loss dropped Coupeville to 1-3 overall, 0-1 in Olympic League play and will force the Wolves to fight back if they want to stretch their run of league titles to three years.

CHS still has plenty of time, though, with two more match-ups against Klahowya (Sept. 29 in Silverdale and Oct. 5 in Coupeville) and three against league door mat Chimacum.

Friday afternoon the Wolves got another win from top doubles duo William Nelson and Joey Lippo, who remained undefeated, cruising to a straight-sets win a match after a titanic fight against a Kingston pair.

The other Coupeville victory came courtesy Jakobi Baumann and Pedro Gamarra, who dropped down from singles to play together for the first time.

The difference between a 5-2 loss and a 4-3 win hinged on the other two doubles matches, but the Wolves dropped #2 doubles after being up a set, and fell in a razor-thin pro set in #4 doubles.

Complete Friday results:

Varsity:

1st Singles — Nile Lockwood lost to Taylor Fite 6-0, 6-0

2nd Singles — Zach Ginnings lost to Jacob Kraft 6-2, 6-1

3rd Singles — Drake Borden lost to Drew Kraft 6-0, 6-4

1st Doubles — William Nelson/Joey Lippo beat Morgan Seidel/William Stewart 6-1, 6-2

2nd Doubles — Nick Etzell/Mason Grove lost to Joe Bowman/Nick Hytinen 3-6, 6-3, 6-3

3rd Doubles — Pedro Gamarra/Jakobi Baumann beat Parker Short/Carson Short 7-5, 6-4

4th Doubles — Tiger Johnson/Jaschon Baumann lost to Dominic Westland/Eric Lochis 9-7

JV:

5th Doubles — Thane Peterson/Koby Schreiber lost to Cameron Johnson/Dylan Jackson 8-1

6th Doubles — Peterson/Schreiber lost to Tyler Godsey/Dakota Johnson 8-3

7th Doubles — Harris Sinclair/Ginnings beat Aiden Adams/Joe Potter 8-5

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Two routes, one goal!!

Posted in Ranting and Raving, tagged , , , , , on July 23, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Journalism, like this backboard and net, may be a bit worn, but it’s still hanging in there. (Amy King photo)

I write.

Of course, over the years, I’ve had a lot of jobs.

Fast food flunkie to dish washer, lawn care “specialist” to liquor slinger, carpet shampooer to the day care guy who got kids so wound up they didn’t take a nap for a week, my working days have been varied.

I’m still haunted by my stint harvesting mussels for a low-rent operation (so, NOT the guys currently working Penn Cove’s waters…), while my 13 years at Videoville was a true rarity — being paid to do something I would have done for free.

But, through it all, I have written.

Since moving to Whidbey midway through my senior year of high school, I have written thousands of stories in local newspapers.

Sports, a movie column which ran without missing an issue for 15 years, epic house fires which made page one, school board meetings which definitely did not, dead starfish stinkin’ up the beach.

A little bit of everything and a lot of it.

The past five years my words have lived here on the internet instead of in the pages of a newspaper.

It was, for me, the best decision I ever made with my writing.

I’m not here to trash newspapers.

They are where I started, and I still remember what it was like to see that first byline in the News-Times when I was 18, refusing to go to college and working in the press room at night and badgering Fred Obee for freelance assignments during the day.

The current group at the News-Times is a stellar collection of journalists, made up of good people who are in the job for the right reason.

The Sports Editor, Jim Waller, and the Publisher, Keven R. Graves, are two of the biggest reasons I got into journalism and have somehow managed to bounce around on the fringes of that world for almost three decades.

They, and their co-workers, are fighting the good fight, at a time when the very nature of newspapers seems to change on a daily basis.

I respect what they do, and why they do it.

Of late, I’m trying to be a little more open about my support, and a little less of a sarcastic pain in the keister.

But, I also realize, life inside a newspaper doesn’t work for me anymore, and hasn’t for a while.

When I started Coupeville Sports Aug. 12, 2012, I’m sure there were some who thought it would be a short-term affair. That I would eventually fall away like the loonies at Island Politics and similar short-term blogs.

Instead, here I am, publishing my 5,399th article, less than a month away from my five-year anniversary.

I still tick people off from time to time (simmer down, Klahowya…) but I’m less prone to poking for the sake of poking. Most days.

Coupeville Sports isn’t perfect, but it is perfect for me.

It means I can post at 2:30 AM, I can write 700 words about a JV game, I can have final say on anything and everything I write (with my readers as the final word on whether I made the right choice or not).

Do I abide by the Associated Press style book at all times? No. They’re not big fans of exclamation points, for one thing.

But while I have freedom in how I write, when I write and why I write, I still view myself as a brother in arms with my newspaper brethren.

I don’t publish smear pieces. I don’t make up stories. I fact check and use sources, and have from day one.

I may publish quicker and more prolifically than most newspapers, but I don’t shortcut to get there.

If you choose to lump me in with the patently fake “news stories” which mushroom all over social media, you do me a disservice.

While I use Facebook and Twitter to promote links to my work, the same as newspaper do, those links exist to send readers to where I actually publish — on my blog.

Journalism has had to adapt in an ever-changing world.

In 1989, there was one way to be a journalist. In 2017, there are many.

Some writers choose to stay within the framework of a conventional newspaper. Some don’t.

We are not enemies. We are on the same journey, just taking different routes.

I respect those still in the trenches at newspapers. Their commitment to the cause is worthy of praise.

I hope the feeling is mutual.

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