Sage Downes battles in the paint. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
One night, two titles on the line.
Tuesday marks the end of the transplanted 2021 basketball season, and both Northwest 2B/1B League titles will be decided on the floor in Mount Vernon.
First up, the La Conner girls will try and finish out an undefeated league campaign, while Mount Vernon Christian will vie for the upset.
The first time these squads faced off, the Braves bounced the Hurricanes 58-33, giving MVC its only loss of the season.
La Conner has impressive non-conference wins against 1A Kings and 2A Lynden, with its lone setback coming to 2A Burlington-Edison.
The math is simple — Tuesday’s winner is league champ.
In the boys contest, MVC will be playing for a title, while La Conner will try and fill the role of spoiler.
Hurricanes win, they top an extremely-close race partially determined by only two of seven NWL schools — Coupeville and Concrete — playing a full 12-game league schedule.
If La Conner triumphs, however, Friday Harbor comes out on top for the boys title.
With their own win Tuesday over visiting Darrington, Coupeville can finish with victories in two-thirds of its games, but it can’t win a league title.
A one-point loss in overtime to Friday Harbor denied the Wolves that fate, but a win against Concrete in their next game did clinch the program’s first winning season since 2010.
CHS basketball coach Brad Sherman was the #2 scorer on the program’s last league champion team in 2001-2002. Now he has the Wolves in contention for another title. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Nine days to play, two titles up for grabs.
Technically.
A person might come along and randomly look at the Northwest 2B/1B League basketball standings for the first time today and think both races are all-out wars.
It’s not true, though.
While the Mount Vernon Christian girls are a very-good team, and do sit just a half-game off of La Conner, I am here to tell you to take all your money to Vegas and bet on the Braves and not the Hurricanes.
The one loss for MVC came against La Conner, and it wasn’t close, with the Braves rolling to a 58-33 win.
That’s the second-closest any team has come to toppling the 2B powerhouse, with the other being 1A royalty King’s, which fell 44-39 in a war of teams which would be playing for state titles in a non-pandemic world.
La Conner and MVC face off a second time, in the season finale June 15, and I could turn out to be an idiot.
If the Hurricanes win, I’ll tip my hat to them.
But I don’t think I’ll need a hat that day.
On the other side of the standings, it is a legitimate war, but, after a 3-0 week, the Coupeville boys control their own destiny.
While MVC has the same 6-3 record as the Wolves, CHS swept the season series with the Hurricanes, and will play three more games to Mount Vernon’s two.
Win out, while playing Friday Harbor (5-3), Concrete (0-9), and Darrington (2-3), and Coupeville, which is on a four-game winning streak, can’t be stopped.
The first, and biggest of those contests comes Tuesday on Whidbey, followed by a road trip Thursday to the wilds of Concrete.
Senior Night arrives the following Tuesday, June 15, four days after graduation, and could be one of the biggest nights in Coupeville boys basketball history.
Sage Downes, seen in an earlier game, rippled the nets for nine points Wednesday as Coupeville beat La Conner. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
The big payback.
Cue the primo ’70s James Brown funk for the bus ride home, cause the Coupeville High School varsity boys basketball team delivered a statement win Wednesday night.
Using a 13-0 second-quarter run to take the lead for good, the Wolves savaged host La Conner 52-40, earning a measure of revenge.
Six days ago, Coupeville fell to the Braves on a last-second shot, a lacerating loss on their home floor.
With the victory Wednesday, the Wolves hushed a properly-enthuiastic La Conner crowd, earned a season split with one of their oldest of old-school rivals, and jumped to 4-3 in Northwest 2B/1B League play.
Now it’s on to a big home game Thursday, when CHS hosts Mount Vernon Christian, which is 5-1 in conference, with its only loss coming to the Wolves in the season opener.
If Coupeville plays Thursday like it did during much of Wednesday’s war, things will be looking good in Cow Town.
While it took the Wolves a bit to pull away, once they had the lead for good, they never surrendered it, using big fourth-quarter buckets to seal the deal.
The opening quarter was a war of attrition, as the two longtime rivals looked like they might settle for an extremely low-scoring defensive affair.
CHS captain Grady Rickner was the first to crack the puzzle of the scoreboard, netting a free throw nearly three minutes into the game, while La Conner nailed its first bucket at the 2:58 mark.
A three-point play the hard way from Xavier Murdy, who ripped down a rebound, then immediately shot back up to get the bucket and accompanying free throw, sent a momentary jolt through the assembled masses.
But, even after Sage Downes dropped in a roller off a Murdy pass, Coupeville’s margin was just 6-4 at the first break.
Then disaster struck. But just for a moment or two.
La Conner, which had been hucking three-point shots at the rim at an alarming rate, finally hit one, then made three in a row to reclaim the lead at 13-9 early in the second frame.
That seemed to be the cue for Coupeville, however, as the Wolves responded not with a whimper, but with a collective full-throated howl.
Hawthorne Wolfe picked the pocket of a La Conner ballhandler, then was gone the other way for a bucket before the Braves even knew anything had gone wrong.
That one carefully-crafted crime lit the fuse on a game-busting run, with Hawk and the Murdy brothers combining to power the aforementioned 13-0 surge.
Xavier Murdy, as usual, was everywhere, doing all the crucial little things.
But younger brother Alex also came up huge, pounding the boards and slamming down a put-back during the run.
Up 22-14 at the half, Coupeville kept memories of six days ago — when it lost a lead in the second half — at bay by spreading the offensive love around.
Five different Wolves tallied a point or more in the third, with much of the scoring coming at the free throw line, where CHS finished 15-for-21 on the night.
The lead ballooned out to nine, then came back down to 32-27 heading into the fourth, at which point the three-ball became the weapon of choice.
La Conner and Coupeville combined to hit six treys to open the fourth, but with a 4-2 advantage, the visitors pushed their lead to 11 points.
Xavier Murdy netted a three-ball from the right side, Wolfe rippled the nets from the top, with the daggers being back-to-back jackpot shots from Wolfe and Sage Downes.
Down 44-33, La Conner blew a prime chance, missing three of four free throws after a shooting foul and technical were wedded, and Coupeville seized the moment.
Grady Rickner slapped home a layup — with Wolfe pilfering the ball and feeding his teammate on the break — Xavier Murdy slipped a pair of free throws through the twines, and things were all but official.
X-Man finished with a game-high 19 points, while hitting a major milestone.
With 170 varsity points and counting, Xavier Murdy is now #150 on the CHS boys basketball career scoring chart, which covers 104 seasons.
Wednesday, he passed 12 former Coupeville players, from old-school pros like Dale Libbey (169) and Roger Sherman (168) to recent grads like Jered Brown (156) and Ulrik Wells (152).
Wolfe was hot on his heels, peppering La Conner for 16 points, including a trio of three-balls.
Having made the nets sing for 571 points, Hawk can see the 600-point club coming up fast, a destination only 32 CHS boys have reached.
The high-scoring duo had plenty of support against the Braves, with Sage Downes dropping in nine points, while Grady Rickner (3), Alex Murdy (3), and Logan Downes (2) also scored.
Logan Martin, TJ Rickner, and Daniel Olson all saw floor time, with the first two hitting the boards with a manic intensity, and the latter of the trio using his long arms to snuff out several La Conner passes.
Jonathan Valenzuela torched the nets for 23 points Wednesday night, pacing the Coupeville JV boys basketball squad to a big road win. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
The net was sending a message to Jonathan Valenzuela Wednesday night.
“Keep shooting.”
So the Coupeville High School sophomore did just that, raining down 23 points, including hitting four three-balls, to spark the Wolf JV boys hoops squad to a wire-to-wire road win.
Coming out on top 39-23 at La Conner, Valenzuela and his running mates won their second-straight game, improving to 2-3 on the season.
The Wolves get an immediate chance to keep their hot streak alive, returning home Thursday to host Mount Vernon Christian in another Northwest 2B/1B League rumble.
Wednesday’s scrap was over almost before it began, with Coupeville running out to a quick 8-0 lead and never looking back.
Valenzuela opened things with a layup and a soft runner in the paint, Cole White popped in for a steal and breakaway bucket, then Valenzuela banked in another basket and the net was poppin’.
For the Wolves at least, as La Conner struggled to score against an amped-up CHS defense,
Coupeville led 10-2 at the first break, pushed it out to 20-5 by the half, then strolled in with a 30-18 advantage through three quarters.
Valenzuela knocked down back-to-back treys twice, first in the second quarter, then again in the fourth frame.
The second of his four three-balls was maybe the most-impressive, as it rustled the net at the very last millisecond, beating the shot clock by the smallest of margins.
Another Valenzuela bomb from behind the arc was set up by a nice pass from William Davidson, who also came around to have his own unique shooting situation.
While a lot of high school shooters aim for the rim when shooting free throws, the Wolf freshman showcased a different, and much-more successful, style.
Using the glass like a pool hustler, Davidson banked in both of his attempts, the ball kissing the backboard and plopping happily through the net with a satisfied lil’ sigh.
Scoring often gets the headlines, but rebounding and hustle on defense are keys to hoops success, and Coupeville has a group of down ‘n dirty scrappers.
Freshmen Zane Oldenstadt and Mikey Robinett, in particular, stood out for their glass-cleaning and opponent-scaring ability Wednesday night.
In the scorebook, White rattled home four points in support of Valenzuela’s season-high 23, while Robinett (3), Logan Downes (3), Davidson (2), Oldenstadt (2), and Nick Guay (2) all hit nothing but net.
Quinten Simpson-Pilgrim, Dominic Coffman, Andrew Williams, Nathan Ginnings, Alex Wasik, and Ryan Blouin all saw floor time, as CHS coach Hunter Smith nimbly juggled his stacked lineup.
Wolf point guard Maddie Georges returned to the lineup Wednesday after missing two games with an injury. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Not much changed.
Six days ago, the young, scrappy Coupeville High School varsity girls basketball team clashed with high-flying La Conner, most likely the best 2B hoops squad in the land.
The Wolves lost that game 74-15, and the rematch Wednesday went almost note for note, with CHS falling 79-13 on the road this time out.
The loss drops Coupeville to 3-4 on the season, while La Conner rolls to 8-0 overall, 7-0 in Northwest 2B/1B League play.
And things don’t get a whole lot easier for the Wolves, who return home Thursday to face Mount Vernon Christian (6-1) in the backend of a brutal twin-bill.
One positive note out of Wednesday’s scuffle was the return of starting point guard Maddie Georges, back after missing two games with an ankle injury.
Having their floor leader back on the hardwood helped, at least a bit, but La Conner’s defense was suffocating and unforgiving.
Every loose ball turned into a breakaway, every tentative pass was deflected back the other way, and the Braves rarely missed when they had the ball in the open court.
Tuesday night La Conner faced off with MVC in a battle of unbeatens, and pasted the Hurricanes by 25 points.
Wednesday was more of the same, but by a much-bigger margin.
The Braves scored the first 12 points of the game, before Ja’Kenya Hoskins got CHS on the board with a free throw at the 4:31 mark of the first quarter.
From there, La Conner stretched the margin out to 29-3 at the first break, and 47-10 at the half.
The first of back-to-back three-balls to open the third quarter pushed the game into mercy-rule territory, and a running clock was in use for the game’s final 14+ minutes.
Even so, La Conner closed out its Senior Night with a 32-3 advantage in the second half, with Coupeville’s lone basket being a three-ball off of George’s fingertips.
Afterwards, Wolf coach Scott Fox was philosophical about the clash with a team which would be a heavy favorite if there was a traditional state tourney this school year.
“It wasn’t our best performance and they’re as good as advertised,” he said. “We couldn’t get anything going offensively, and had a hard time stopping them defensively.
“Bottom line is a home game against another powerhouse tomorrow night, and see if we can improve on today’s performance.”
Seven Wolves scored in the game, led by Georges and her three-ball.
Audrianna Shaw (2), Kylie Van Velkinburgh (2), Izzy Wells (2), Anya Leavell (2), Ryanne Knoblich (1), and Hoskins (1) all tallied points, with Lyla Stuurmans, Morgan Stevens, Savina Wells, and Gwen Gustafson seeing floor time.
Coupeville Sports 