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Posts Tagged ‘La Conner’

La Conner appeals to play 1B football

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , on January 2, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Wolf fans keep an eye on all the gossip from La Conner. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The twists and turns keep coming.

With the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association currently conducting the process to classify schools for sports competition between 2024-2028, the Northwest 2B/1B League will likely look different next fall.

Not necessarily in terms of schools being added or subtracted, but in how the current occupants line up.

Projected numbers indicate Mount Vernon Christian and Orcas Island will move up from 1B to 2B, joining Coupeville, Friday Harbor, and La Conner, while Concrete and Darrington will remain at 1B.

Going from a 3-4 lineup to a 5-2 one helps 2B schools as it increases playoff opportunities in most sports.

Now, though, there’s another quirk, as La Conner has appealed to play down for football.

The Braves, who are a traditional gridiron powerhouse, have struggled in recent seasons, both in terms of wins and losses and roster numbers.

Schools can opt to play above their classification in any sport, but can play down only in football, and only if approved by the WIAA.

La Conner’s bid to move its pigskin program to 1B was confirmed by Coupeville High School Athletic Director Willie Smith, who is the President of the NWL.

Appeals will be heard Jan. 18-19, with the WIAA approving the full 2024-2028 plan Jan. 21.

After that leagues can set schedules, add or subtract schools, and get all their various plans hashed out ahead of the start of the 2024-2025 school year in August.

If La Conner’s appeal to play as a 1B football program is successful, it will leave Coupeville and Friday Harbor as the only 2B schools playing the sport in the current NWL lineup.

While Orcas and MVC are slated to move up, neither field a gridiron team, opting to focus on boys’ soccer instead.

With three 2B teams playing football previously, one earned a ticket to the state tourney. That will remain in effect, barring the NWL adding any other 2B football-playing members to its current lineup.

Darrington and Concrete, the league’s remaining 1B schools, play eight-man football. If La Conner is approved to join them, it’s likely the Braves will also pull three players from the field for future games.

How that would affect the status of future games with Coupeville is unknown at this time.

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La Conner School Board among state’s best

Posted in school board, tagged , , , , on November 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »

La Conner’s School Board was hailed as one of the state’s best. (Photo property La Conner School District)

A nearby school board has been honored as one of the best in the state.

La Conner, which joins Coupeville in the Northwest 2B/1B League for athletics, was hailed Saturday by the Washington State School Directors’ Association.

Its school board joined Kelso and Sumner-Bonney Lake as the 2023 Boards of the Year.

La Conner topped the “small school” class, with the other two boards recognized for their work at “medium” and “large” school districts, respectively.

“This top honor recognizes a board that has shown significant vision and leadership that clearly resulted in positive and measurable student success,” WSSDA said in a press release.

“All three boards demonstrated creativity and resourcefulness within their roles to support the success of their students and staff while serving their communities.

“Also, each board significantly narrowed or closed opportunity gaps among students.”

La Conner’s board, working with Superintendent Dr. Will Makoyiisaaminaa (Nelson) and educators, “partnered to focus heavily on math acceleration last school year, which was the area with the largest opportunity gap for students.”

“A combination of adopting a new math curriculum and assessment tool, monthly reviews of math data by the board, and investment in teacher support paid off with significant growth in just one year,” WSSDA said.

“It also committed to the practices of Professional Learning Communities, Universal Design for Learning, and Mastery Based Learning.”

The La Conner board is comprised of Directors John Agen, Loran James, Jeremy Wilbur, Kim Pedroza, Susie Deyo and student reps Taylor Rae Cayou and Josi Straathof.

 

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First agony, then ecstasy

Posted in Volleyball, tagged , , , , , on November 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Long day, big reward. (Jennifer Heaton photo)

In the end, one thing matters — they’re going to the state championships.

No matter how the Coupeville High School varsity volleyball squad got there, no matter how many ups and downs the Wolves experienced Wednesday, the end result trumps everything else.

In a season in which they started 1-4, they’ll step on the bus next Tuesday at 12-5, winners of 11 of their last 12.

And when they take to the courts at the Yakima SunDome Wednesday as one of 16 teams still in contention for a 2B state title, they’ll be the second squad led there by CHS coach Cory Whitmore.

“See how things work better when you hit it where I ask you to hit it?” (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

It’ll be a return trip for assistant coach Ashley Menges as well, since she was a player on the last Wolf volleyball team to make it to Yakima — the 2017 edition, which played Castle Rock and Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls) at the big dance.

This year’s team will find out their opening round foe Sunday, when the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association releases the full bracket for the double-elimination tourney, with schools seeded #1-#16.

Coupeville had two shots Wednesday to win one match at the 2B District 1/2 tourney in La Conner, and Cow Town’s spikers came through in crunch time.

The Wolves didn’t upend four-time defending state champ La Conner to claim the bi-district title, though they came within two points of doing so three times.

But they did crunch Northwest Christian of Lacey, the top seed from District 2, for the second time in three days, and that punched their ticket.

How Wednesday played out:

 

La Conner:

Coupeville had the champs on the ropes, dangerously close to winning its first volleyball district-level title since 2004.

But while the Braves are not the team they once were, their spikers are still dangerous — young women who have rarely lost and almost always play like they expect to bring home the W.

And they slipped away in the end, finding just enough pressure-packed winners to eke out a 22-25, 17-25, 25-23, 26-24, 15-12 win to get to 12-7 on the season.

Despite winning more points (109-105), the Wolves never got to match point, and have now split their four matches with La Conner this season.

Wins at the South Whidbey Invite and on Coupeville’s Senior Night — handing the Braves their first league loss in 12+ years — were huge.

A pair of five-set losses on La Conner’s home floor? Frustrating.

Will there be a fifth matchup in Yakima? Only time will tell.

For now, the Wolves can focus on what went right, which was a lot.

CHS opened the night by sweeping to wins in the first two sets, riding big kills from snipers Lyla Stuurmans — back on the floor after an ankle injury in Monday’s district playoff opener — and Mia Farris.

Jada Heaton won a tip war at the net, Katie Marti spanked a series of service winners, and Grey Peabody pasted a winner to give the Wolves the lead for good midway through the first frame.

Clinging to a 23-22 lead, Coupeville got two epic plays to seal the deal.

“Right there, that’s my favorite spot on the floor to hit.” (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Marti, freezing everyone on both sides of the net, had the entire gym believing she was about to launch a set for one of her mad mashers.

Instead, at the very last second, the irrepressible one suddenly twisted her body into a pretzel in the kind of move which makes former dishwashers like myself cry out in pain, flipping the ball into a small hole in the defense.

Ball hit floor, the Braves whiffed, and Marti’s body snapped back into place, already going into celebration mode.

Try doing that when you’re middle-aged, missy. Ain’t gonna feel so good then, so enjoy being limber now.

With La Conner still in shock, Marti made a sensational running save on the next point, then flipped the ball skyward, setting up a rampaging Teagan Calkins.

Her right arm swinging like a scythe cutting grass, the sophomore sensation crushed the bejesus out of the ball, blasting home a kill to put set one into the win column.

Set two was more of the same sweet sauce, as Coupeville rallied from an early deficit, put the hammer down, then pulled away.

Lyla Stuurmans spent Halloween icing her ankle, with help from Nick Guay. (Sarah Stuurmans photo)

A stellar run at the service line from Stuurmans, followed by an even better one from Madison McMillan, was more than La Conner could deal with.

Back-to-back kills from Peabody and Stuurmans pushed Coupeville ahead 2-0, and things were looking peachy.

And they stayed positive for much of the third set, a battle royal with 11 ties and multiple lead changes.

Coupeville got to 23-23 on a McMillan ace, putting them two points away from lifting some hardware, only to have La Conner slip away at the very end.

The fourth set might have been the most frustrating, however, as the Wolves blew out to a 15-7 lead, with Farris floating in from above to nail a tip winner to push the lead to a full eight points.

The Braves refused to buckle, answering with a 10-2 run to knot things up at 17-17, before both squads went on 3-0 mini-runs to re-knot things at 20-20.

A pair of strong plays from Peabody at the net gave CHS a 22-20 lead, with the Wolves twice getting back within two points of ending things at 23-23 and 24-24.

That elusive match point still evaded the Wolves, though, with La Conner sending things to a fifth and deciding set.

Coupeville’s final lead in that frame came at 4-3, and the final tie at 7-7.

Farris launched three more winners in the waning moments, but La Conner, ever elusive, gave their student section something to scream about at the end.

 

Haylee Armstrong (left) celebrates with her future teammate, varsity ballhawk Taylor Brotemarkle. (Michelle Armstrong photo)

 

Northwest Christian:

With just minutes between the La Conner loss and a return to the court, the Wolves looked listless, in the extreme.

Their foes, who stayed alive by sweeping Auburn Adventist Academy earlier in the evening, came out with some fiery pop, while it took most of the first set for Coupeville to rediscover its mojo.

But the Wolves eventually did, holding off four set points in the opening frame before rallying for a 27-25, 25-12, 25-18 victory.

We’re not going to talk about most of the first set, as it would be super depressing.

Coupeville’s spikers made the kind of unforced errors they rarely make and looked like zombies with hangovers – understandable after the gut-wrenching loss to La Conner.

But then, something clicked deep inside, round about when the Wolves were looking at a 23-19 deficit.

Seniors Issabel Johnson (1) and Grey Peabody are front and center for a state-bound team. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Peabody rose up over the net like a phoenix, unleashing one of the loudest kills of the night, and the splendid senior middle blocker seemed to wake up her team.

Farris went back to launching lasers, the Wolves started scrambling for balls again, holding off multiple Northwest Christian set points, and then Calkins ripped a hole in the floor once CHS finally had a set point of its own.

Coupeville’s rivals stayed chippy, but got a lot more gun-shy after that, and steadily, play by play, the Wolf team capable of making a solid run at state reemerged.

The second set was a non-stop parade of Wolf kills and service aces, with about the only thing capable of stopping Coupeville being a ref who froze in place and made like a tree as Farris tried in vain to get around her while chasing a ball.

The final frame was a romp, with Farris (two times), Calkins, and Marti raining down hot death on their serves.

The “we’re-going-to-state” point?

It came off the fist of Peabody, as she punched home a final kill, guaranteeing she and fellow senior Issabel Johnson will lead their squad onto the floor another time.

 

Wednesday stats:

Taylor Brotemarkle — 11 digs
Teagan Calkins — 14 kills, 6 digs, 1 ace, 3 block assists
Mia Farris — 40 kills, 38 digs, 10 aces, 1 solo block, 1 block assist
Jada Heaton — 2 kills, 1 dig, 1 assist
Issabel Johnson — 2 digs
Katie Marti — 5 kills, 25 digs, 81 assists, 5 aces, 1 solo block
Madison McMillan — 47 digs, 5 assists, 4 aces
Grey Peabody — 29 kills, 2 digs, 1 assist, 3 solo blocks, 4 block assists
Lyla Stuurmans — 18 kills, 25 digs, 1 ace, 1 block assist

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Who you gonna call? Streak busters!

Posted in Volleyball, tagged , , , , , , on October 25, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Jada Heaton, seen in an earlier match, played virtually error-free volleyball Tuesday night. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

This is how an empire dies, in a hail of fiery spikes on a blustery evening.

Outside rain slashed down on the streets of Cow Town Tuesday, while inside the Coupeville High School gym screams of joy, seasoned with delicious salty tears from the visiting fans, reverberated off the walls.

It was Senior Night for the Wolves, a time to celebrate four-year warriors Issabel Johnson and Grey Peabody.

But it was more, because the mightiest team in the region, four-time defending 2B state champion La Conner, a program which hadn’t lost a Northwest 2B/1B League varsity volleyball match in 12+ years, was down for the count.

In more ways than one.

Led by its seniors, and getting contributions from all nine girls on the roster, Coupeville plunged the dagger in, claiming a 30-28, 22-25, 27-25, 25-23 victory which will stand as one of the defining moments in CHS volleyball history.

The streak killers. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The win, the eighth-straight for the surging Wolves, lifts them to 5-2 in conference action, 9-4 overall.

The 85th win for Coupeville coach Cory Whitmore, it pushes his squad within one victory of hitting double-digits for the seventh time in his eight years at the school.

The only time CHS didn’t get there? 2020, when the pandemic limited the school to just nine total matches.

Next up is the regular-season finale Thursday at Friday Harbor, against a team sitting at 1-12 on the season.

After that comes the four-team double-elimination district tourney, which will send two schools to the state tourney.

As the #2 seed from District 1, Coupeville opens Monday, Oct. 30 on the road in Lacey against District 2’s top team, Northwest Christian, while La Conner hosts Auburn Adventist Academy.

But while the Braves will be the #1 seed from District 1, Tuesday’s loss also denies them the regular season NWL title.

Orcas Island, which lost to La Conner, finishes 8-1, while La Conner comes in at 7-1.

The difference in matches played is because there are three 2B schools in the NWL and four 1B schools.

Each team plays home and away matches against rivals from their same classification, but just one rumble against teams that are not, which gives 1B schools nine conference contests, but 2B schools just eight.

Is it fair? Probably not.

Is every other volleyball team in the land holding hands and singing kumbaya tonight after Coupeville KO’d a La Conner program which has ruled with an iron fist since current players were in preschool?

Abso-frickin-lutely.

Madison McMillan and Co. are on a tear. (Jackie Saia photo)

There’s no Ellie Marble to save the Braves this season, and I have no doubt La Conner, which is 9-7 overall and taking a beating from vengeance-seeking non-conference foes, will be back strong in the future.

Which is why you strike when you can, and you enjoy the heck out of the moment when you put a dent in the Death Star.

Coupeville beat La Conner earlier this season in tourney play at the South Whidbey Invite and pushed the Braves to five sets the first time they played a regular-season match.

Tuesday, when it meant the most, the Wolves hit the hardest.

It was a donnybrook, a street fight played out on hardwood, a match only decided by three points, with CHS holding a 104-101 advantage at the end.

Three different Wolves — Mia Farris, Lyla Stuurmans, and Peabody — connected on 13+ kills apiece, and they had to work overtime to collect those.

There were no easy points on this night, which makes the end result sweeter.

The first set featured 14 ties, and seven set points — five for Coupeville, two for La Conner — as both teams dug deep in search of an elusive edge.

Stuurmans, bounding to the rafters in front of a raucous Wolf student section, pasted the crud out of the ball in the opening frame, while Teagan Calkins and Farris exploded at key moments.

But it was Peabody who delivered the biggest blows at the end, accounting for three of Coupeville’s final four points in the set, her arm windmilling and cranking kills off of feathery sets by Katie Marti.

Each blast by the standout senior generated big breeze, pushing the Braves back on the floor and threatening to blow the doors off the gym.

The second set was a kill-off between Stuurmans, fire erupting from her fingertips, and Farris, who slammed every one of her winners off of a La Conner body part.

Jada Heaton, bringer of joy to her teammates, proved to be a deadly companion as well, artfully collecting a pair of tip winners, then dancing off to squeeze the life out of best bud Farris.

But La Conner rallied to briefly sting Coupeville at the worst possible moment, closing the set on a 6-1 run to knot things up at a set apiece.

If that bothered the Wolves, they hid it well, bouncing right back to claim a third set which featured 11 ties.

Neither team led by more than two points until CHS pulled ahead 24-20 as Stuurmans painted the backline with a blast which made her fan club yelp in joy.

La Conner held off four set points, though, and actually went ahead at 25-24.

Enter Heaton again, whacking a kill to knot things up, before a disputed call at the net went against the Braves and Farris spanked a winner down the middle of the floor.

Your silly rules will never keep Taylor Brotemarkle from bringing the spirit. (Jackie Saia photo)

Coupeville’s celebration proved to be too much for the Fun Police, who slapped Taylor Brotemarkle with a yellow card for levitating off the bench and daring to cheer for her teammates in a vibrant voice.

We weren’t playing in a library, even if the refs seemed to think so.

For Wolf coach Cory Whitmore, the moment drew a laugh after the match.

“I will take that anytime, seeing Taylor supporting her girls like that,” he said. “Love to see the passion.”

With the gym getting progressively louder, Coupeville claimed the early lead in set four behind some peppery serves from woman-of-a-million-talents Madison McMillan and the countdown was on.

La Conner fought back to go ahead at 18-15 — which caused Farris, Peabody, and Marti to crunch back-to-back-to-back winners — then claimed its final advantage at 22-20.

The Braves were looking for a miracle, a chance to catch their breath, for the power to go out in the gym.

Anything to derail what was coming.

Nothing was stopping this train on this night, however.

Calkins slid a winner into a barely-there crack in the defense, before Farris launched a missile that no one on La Conner’s side of the net was … brave … enough to stop.

The visitors had dodged set points again and again, but on match point, it ended in a flash.

McMillan, prowling the baseline with a small, deadly smile gracing her face, let loose with a silky serve.

The ball went skyward, La Conner tried to play it back, and then, a burst of wind as Farris soared to the heavens, her fist swinging, unleashing like Thor bringing the thunder and the lightning.

And maybe all that rain filling the streets outside the gym.

That is how one empire dies, and another is born. In fury and joy, in a final kill which La Conner had no chance to return.

Celebrating a legendary win. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Cue the celebration, whether it be the student section and Wolf bench rushing the floor, or Whitmore and assistant coach Ashley Menges quietly sitting in the bleachers afterwards, basking in the afterglow.

“I am so proud of the way that everyone was all in,” Whitmore said. “So much fun to see them battle and thrive.

“We still have much to work on, and that’s a good thing, but this is a culmination of a lot of hard work, not just volleyball, but of being really connected as a team.”

Or, as Menges put it, gently needling any hoops-obsessed bloggers in the area while arching an eyebrow or two, “Maybe tonight, basketball wasn’t God’s favorite sport after all. Maybe tonight it was volleyball.”

Maybe so.

 

Tuesday stats:

Taylor Brotemarkle — 6 digs, 1 assist
Teagan Calkins — 4 kills, 3 digs, 2 aces
Mia Farris — 16 kills, 28 digs, 2 aces, 1 solo block, 1 block assist
Jada Heaton — 3 kills
Issabel Johnson — 7 digs, 1 ace
Katie Marti — 2 kills, 18 digs, 33 assists, 1 ace
Madison McMillan — 1 kill, 13 digs, 5 assists, 1 ace
Grey Peabody — 13 kills, 1 solo block, 3 block assists
Lyla Stuurmans — 15 kills, 12 digs, 2 aces, 2 block assists

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Young spikers build strong future

Posted in Volleyball, tagged , , , , , on October 25, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Freshman volleyball ace Dakota Strong (right) filled up the stat sheet Tuesday night. (Parker Hammons photo)

Erase the final couple minutes and this was one for the archives.

La Conner’s JV volleyball squad made the plays it needed to at crunch time Tuesday, holding off four match points to escape with a road win.

That’s true.

But for the first 98.2% of the match, Coupeville’s freshman-dominated squad put together its best performance of the season.

That’s also true.

The scoreboard will tell you La Conner escaped with a 20-25, 26-24, 15-2 win, and the record book will tell you the Wolves fall to 2-5 in Northwest 2B/1B League play, 4-9 overall.

What you won’t know, unless you were there in the CHS gym, was that Cow Town’s JV spiker crew came together in impressive fashion Tuesday night.

The Wolves put points up on the board against a top-level team, and they did it as a unit.

There have been bright moments for these young guns, and moments when lessons were learned, but this was the first match where you truly felt all six players on the floor were clicking as one.

Coupeville came out breathing fire and droppin’ haymakers, rolling out to an 11-1 lead in the opening set.

Rock ’em, sock ’em cousins Haylee Armstrong and Capri Anter were dealing at the service line, and Dakota Strong, Lexis Drake, and Myra McDonald were crunching winners at the net.

La Conner is resilient, and talented, however, and the Braves broke off their own impressive run, reeling off 11 straight points to reclaim the lead.

Chloe Marzocca tracks an incoming ball. (Kaitlyn Leavell photo)

From there, the two squads exchanged body blows, careening through four ties before team leader Chloe Marzocca pushed Coupeville ahead for good.

Popping powerful serves, she kept the Braves guessing, and usually guessing wrong, with a tip winner from Anter and a nasty slicer off of Drake’s fingertips providing the final margin.

Set two went in much the same way, with the Wolves bolting in front, La Conner chipping away at the lead, then the squads hammering away at each other.

Carly Burt provided a burst of energy for CHS, while Armstrong was a flippin’ fool, drawing in the defense, then arching the ball just out of reach of the Braves, once, twice, three times.

Up a set and leading 24-20 in the second, Coupeville was on the verge of claiming a major win, but La Conner proved to be hard to pin down.

To give the Braves proper credit, they won the match with stellar plays down the stretch, blunting the best the Wolves could throw at them late.

But instead of focusing on the finish, look instead at Drake, a freshman who splits her time between volleyball and cheer.

Bounding skyward, with the match slipping away, she redirected a wayward ball, sending it slicing past the defense for a precision point, before being mobbed by her teammates.

That’s the image to remember as the Wolf JV heads to Friday Harbor this Thursday to wrap up its season.

Because, like much of what came in the first 98.2% of the match, it speaks of a bright future for Coupeville’s young spikers.

 

Tuesday stats:

Capri Anter — 2 kills, 1 ace
Haylee Armstrong — 2 kills, 3 digs, 3 assists, 3 aces
Lexis Drake — 4 kills, 1 dig, 1 assist, 1 ace
Chloe Marzocca — 3 digs, 1 assist, 1 ace
Myra McDonald — 1 kill
Dakota Strong — 1 kill, 6 digs, 1 assist, 1 ace

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