“Outta my way, boy! I’ve got a delivery to make.” (Jackie Saia photos)
Final scores are often deceptive.
A random person wandering past the scoreboard in the Arlington High School gym Saturday right as the boys’ basketball state tourney game between Coupeville and Tonasket ended could glance at the numbers and get the wrong idea.
For while the final score showed the Tigers winning 65-50, eliminating the Wolves from the postseason, the game was never a blowout.
Instead, Coupeville, which finishes 17-6, a win shy of advancing to the Spokane Arena, led in the first quarter, rallied to retake the advantage with a furious third quarter surge, and was down just a point a fraction of a moment before the final frame began.
Unfortunately for Brad Sherman’s squad, they got stung — for the second time — when Tonasket put a rebound back up and in with a second on the clock.
That came on the heels of the Tigers popping a three-ball through the rim with one second to play in the second quarter, as all the luck (and all the freakish plays) went one way on this afternoon.
Stung by the third-quarter gut punch, CHS hit its only cold stretch from the field at the worst possible time, going almost seven minutes without a field goal in the fourth as Tonasket pulled away.
The final score was skewed, as these things often are, by a tsunami of free throws at the tail end, as the Wolves had to repeatedly foul to stop the clock and prolong the season.
As well as the prep hoops career for Coupeville’s nine seniors, who went out the way they came in back during their middle school days — fighting for every ball and playing as an extremely tight-knit pack.
The Wolves get loud.
In the early going Saturday it looked like the Wolves were primed to capture the program’s first state win since 1979.
Cole White drilled a three-ball from the left side to open things — making him and dad Greg the first CHS father-son duo to combine for 1,000 career points — and the Wolves were off to the races.
Logan Downes slashed to the hoop for a bucket, Chase Anderson beat a crowd to the other end of the floor on a breakaway, and Nick Guay pulled off a silky move in the paint, slapping home a layup off a feed from Downes.
With White adding two more buckets during the run, Coupeville opened up a 13-5 lead midway through the first quarter.
But Tonasket, a scrappy, quick squad with multiple weapons, fought back, taking a 16-14 lead at the first break, before stretching things out to 23-16 midway through the second quarter.
A 7-2 Coupeville surge, capped by back-to-back buckets from springy sophomore Anderson, cut the deficit back to 25-23 and the final moments could have gone either way.
The Wolves had a good look on a jumper to tie things, but the ball slid off the rim at the last second, before Tonasket came down and sank the three-ball dagger over outstretched hands.
Chase Anderson wheels and deals.
While the Tigers went to the break leading 28-23, Coupeville rallied in the second half all season, with Sherman apparently Cow Town’s answer to Knute Rockne with his locker room speeches.
Whether inspired by their coach, or just more comfortable with the Arlington court, the Wolves sprang to life in the third quarter.
Downes, who hadn’t been able to get off even a single three-ball attempt in the first half while facing a withering defense, rained down four treys in the frame.
Toss in a couple more sweet jumpers from White, who stood tall while being jostled, poked, prodded, and otherwise whacked around, and Coupeville sprang back into the lead.
From five down, the Wolves went five up at 37-32 as Downes sank a three-ball while flying down court.
Then, after Tonasket twice inched back in front, White flipped the net to push his team back in front at 39-38, before Downes dropped a trey to later cut the deficit to 43-42.
That last three-ball was set up by a magnificent rebound from Hurlee Bronec, who jumped to the ceiling to yank down the carom, then alertly fed his running mate for the shot.
Hurlee Bronec leaves his foes flabbergasted.
It was literally anyone’s game at that moment, but sometimes you get the lucky bounce, and sometimes the other team gets EVERY lucky bounce.
Tonasket’s putback staked it to a 45-42 lead heading into the final eight minutes, and a three-ball on the other side of the break was a killer.
Unable to get the ball to stay in the net in the game’s final minutes, the Wolves failed to convert a fourth-quarter field goal until the 1:14 mark, when Guay snagged a rebound and went right back up for the score.
Unfortunately for Coupeville, the game had slipped away by then, and Tonasket closed things out with seven straight free throws.
With the win, the Tigers send their boys and girls basketball teams to Spokane in the same year for the first time in school history.
The Tonasket girls thrashed Friday Harbor 77-13 in their state opener.
Five of the six Northwest 2B/1B League teams to make the state tourney have been eliminated.
The Mount Vernon Christian boys fell Feb. 20, while both the La Conner girls and boys were KO’d Saturday.
That leaves the second-seeded MVC girls as the last hope for an NWL team to win a state title this season, as they prepare for a 1B quarterfinal game next week.
In their final game together, all nine Coupeville seniors saw the floor, where they were assisted by underclassmen Hunter Bronec, Anderson, and Hurlee Bronec.
Timothy Nitta, Ryan Blouin, Zane Oldenstadt, William Davidson, Quinten Simpson-Pilgrim, and Mikey Robinett joined White, Downes, and Guay in bowing out.
Logan Downes slides under the defense.
Capping a run which carried him to the #1 spot on the CHS boys’ career scoring chart, Downes rippled the nets for a team-high 23 points.
He finishes as the only Wolf player, boy or girl, to have two 500-point seasons (554 as a junior and 527 as a senior), while scoring 1,305.
That puts him well ahead of previous record holders Jeff Stone and Mike Bagby, who both tallied 1,137, and leaves him trailing just Brianne King, who torched the net for 1,549.
She got a full four seasons, including long playoff runs each campaign, while Covid limited the Wolves to just 12 games, and no playoffs, when Downes was a freshman.
White tossed in 12 points in support Saturday, hitting two final milestones.
He finishes with 405 points, becoming just the 65th Wolf boy to crack the club across 107 seasons, while he and pops amassed 1,009 points while playing in two different generations.
Anderson, now the active scoring leader with 260 points at the halfway point of his career, banked in nine in the finale, while Guay popped for five and Hurlee Bronec netted a free throw.
Final season scoring totals:
Logan Downes – 527
Chase Anderson – 205
Cole White – 205
Ryan Blouin – 137
Hunter Bronec – 85
Nick Guay – 77
Hurlee Bronec – 37
Zane Oldenstadt – 27
William Davidson – 14
Aiden O’Neill – 7
Mikey Robinett – 6
Timothy Nitta – 5
Quinten Simpson-Pilgrim – 4
William Davidson and Ryan Blouin share a post-game hug.
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