Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Makana Stone’

What a year!!

Posted in 2015: Looking back, tagged , , , , , on December 31, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Sebastian Davis didn't quite make my Top 20, but he did star in one of the year's best photos. (John Fisken photo)

   The thrill of the goal, as Wolf booter Sebastian Davis celebrates in one of the year’s best pics. (John Fisken photos)

The fastest 4 x 200 relay team in school history

   The fastest 4 x 200 relay team in school history (and they’re pretty good at taking photos, too). L to r, Lauren Grove, Marisa Etzell, Sylvia Hurlburt and Makana Stone.

A lot happened in 2015.

Not all of it was awesome, but, for now, we’re going to ignore death, arrests and controversies and focus on the positives with a list of sports moments which will live large in the collective memory of Wolf Nation.

It’s not a definitive list, by any means (as soon as I print this, someone will bring up something big I overlooked) but it’s a good jumping-off point.

With that being said, the semi-official Coupeville Sports Top 20 Moments of 2015:

20) CHS boys’ basketball beats Concrete 66-60 Dec. 18 as four Wolves (Wiley Hesselgrave, Jordan Ford, Gabe Wynn and Hunter Smith) go for double figures.

The team’s third straight win, it lifts them to 4-3, the first time Coupeville has been over .500 in Anthony Smith’s five seasons as head coach.

19) The future is now, as CMS 8th grader Jake Mitten torches Chimacum for 28 points in a win Dec. 17. It’s the most points scored this year by any Wolf hoops player, high school or middle school.

18) Freshman Kalia Littlejohn bursts on the scene, racking up a Wolf girls’ soccer record 10 goals in her debut. Her reward? A First-Team All-Conference nod along with big sis Mia.

17) CHS junior Clay Reilly wasn’t even the punter when the season started, but once he takes over the job, he goes bonkers.

With almost 1,200 yards, he earns All-Conference honors. With one epic 70-yard boot against Port Townsend in October, he becomes a legend.

16) Still the BMOCs. Six CHS grads (Jordan Schisel, Gavin Keohane, Scott Stuurmans, Michael Vaughan, Pete Petrov and Greg White) and one young gun from Marysville (Dom Kiblinger) roll to a title at last weekend’s 8th annual Tom Roehl Roundball Classic.

It’s the fourth title in five years for the core of the squad.

15) Abraham Leyva has tallied 25 goals in two years of running the pitch for the Wolf boys’ soccer squad, including a program-record 14 this past spring.

His best day? A four goal, four assist gem against Chimacum in mid-April.

14) When freshman CHS quarterback Gabe Eck stepped on to the field for his first-ever start in the season’s third game Sept. 18, he had four completions to his name — all coming in mop-up duty.

By the time the game was over that night, he had torched host Chimacum for 403 yards and three touchdowns on 19-34 passing.

How big was that performance?

Eck’s predecessor, Joel Walstad, threw for 1,600 yards as a senior, but never topped 400 in a game. For that matter, neither did Brad Sherman, who holds the school’s career passing mark, regardless of what the record board might say.

13) Wolf sophomore Hunter Smith was a two-way terror on the gridiron, but he makes this list for hauling down seven interceptions from his defensive back position, a new school single-season record.

12) Three-sport star Aaron Curtin caps a stellar career by jumping back into tennis only a few moments after ending his final baseball season.

Fighting off private school prodigies and Eastern Washington heat, he claims an 8th place medal at the 1A tourney, the best finish by a Wolf boy in memory.

11) It was a good year overall for CHS tennis coach Ken Stange, who won league titles with both the girls’ and boys’ squads. Unlike in the past, when the school was fond of overlooking the netters, this time they will have the banners to back their boasts.

10) Makana Stone, the gold standard for CHS track athletes, won 13 races in two seasons at the middle school level. Last spring, CMS 8th grader Lindsey Roberts won 20 in ONE season.

Roberts was 18-0 when she ran the 200, 1600 and hurdles, and she and her teammates split the 4 x 100 relays they ran in, with two firsts and two seconds (both by less than a second.)

9) Saving his best heave for last, Wolf junior Dalton Martin grabs fifth-place at the state meet in the discus.

With his final throw, he beat his PR by an astonishing eight feet, setting himself up for a final run for glory (and possible college scholarships) in ’16.

8) Hailey Hammer, the young woman who never played a second of JV, garnering 12 letters across volleyball, basketball and softball, goes out on top.

Final game of the regular season, bottom of the seventh, bases juiced, two outs, Wolves down 4-2 to La Conner.

And Hammer Time gets the Hollywood ending, absolutely crushing a game-winning, walk-off three-run double on the final swing she would ever unleash on her home softball field. Goose bumps.

7) Capping a phenomenal junior campaign, Makana Stone is tabbed as 1A Olympic League MVP for girls’ basketball. The easiest vote in the history of easy votes.

6) Senior duffer Christine Fields caps her career with a sixth-place finish at state, after sweeping the league and district titles. The master of consistency, she finished in the top 15 at state all four years, breaking the top 10 three times.

5) By the time she’s done, the record will be way out of reach. The queen of the floor burn, perpetual motion machine Valen Trujillo, shatters the CHS career record for digs, helping propel her volleyball squad to the playoffs.

4) The Man exits, as the King of the Golden Quote, Willie Smith, resigns after 19 years as CHS head baseball coach. Journalists everywhere are still crying.

3) Makana Stone, Marisa Etzell, Sylvia Hurlburt and Lauren Grove shatter the school record in the 4 x 200 relay (for the 72nd time), running a 1:46.64 to claim third at the state meet.

2) A year after winning just one match, the Wolf spikers finish second in league play and not only earn a rare home playoff game, they win it, downing Seattle Christian in front of a rockin’ crowd.

Losing only two seniors, they look like long-term contenders.

1) Breaking a school-wide dry spell, the CHS girls’ basketball squad romps to a league title, hanging the first new championship banner in the gym in 13 years.

Along the way, the Wolves go 9-0 (a mark matched by the JV), winning every league game by 15+ points.

Read Full Post »

Refuse to lose!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , , on December 30, 2015| 1 Comment »

Kyla Briscoe's scrappy defense helped kick-start her Wolf squad to a huge win over powerhouse La Conner Wednesday. (John Fisken photo)

   Kyla Briscoe’s scrappy defense helped kick-start Coupeville to a huge win over powerhouse La Conner Wednesday. (John Fisken photos)

Big sis Tiffany Briscoe was a beast on the boards, snatching seven, including the game's most crucial one.

   Big sis Tiffany Briscoe was a beast on the boards, snatching seven, including the game’s most crucial one.

The will to win is huge in these ones.

Reaching down deep to find something even they might not have realized was there, the Coupeville High School girls’ basketball squad put together a statement win Wednesday night.

Fighting back from a nine-point deficit, the Wolves used a second quarter run for the ages to stagger hoops heavyweight La Conner, then ferociously clamped down on defense to escape with their fourth straight victory.

The 39-38 non-conference win lifted Coupeville to 6-2 and put the word out on two fronts.

One, if you need a bucket from Makana Stone to ice a game, the stellar senior will deliver.

And two, this Wolf squad can dance with the best and come out on top, even when they don’t have a completely flawless night.

With the game on the line, Stone rose to the moment, scoring all seven of her team’s points in the fourth quarter, including two huge buckets in the final minute.

The first one, on a power move in the paint, staked Coupeville to a 37-36 lead after La Conner had ripped off five straight points to snatch the lead away.

Then, after the Braves immediately responded with a jumper of their own, Stone and her teammates broke La Conner’s press for what would turn out to be the winning basket.

The ball zipped from player to player, threading between defenders, before the most explosive player on the court snatched it, pump faked a defender out of her high tops and shot past her for a layup that sent the home crowd into hysterics.

Even then, La Conner, one of the most patient teams in the land, had two chances to ruin things.

First a lil’ runner in the paint spun around the rim, started to drop and then kicked back out, rejected by the ghost of Wolf players past.

After a second shot banged off the backboard, Tiffany Briscoe ripped the rebound down, clutching it protectively like a baby as Wolf coach David King screamed for a timeout with six ticks left on the clock.

Given a chance to set up a play, Coupeville managed to momentarily evade the inevitable foul on the in-bounds pass, running off a precious three seconds before a Brave could thump a Wolf in front of a ref.

And while Kailey Kellner’s ensuing free throw wouldn’t stay in the basket, it took a gorgeous kick off the rim and shot far to the side.

Though the Braves got their hands on the carom, they had no timeouts remaining and were so buried under the suffocating Wolf defense, they failed to get off a final shot.

The opportunistic CHS defense was the difference, as the Wolves managed to overcome eight three-point bombs by La Conner.

Trailing 13-4 early in the second quarter, Coupeville inserted scrappy sophomore Kyla Briscoe, and what seemed like a small move paid off hugely.

With Briscoe and fellow ball-hawk Lauren Grove relentlessly harassing the Brave ball-handlers, the Wolves started to turn the tide of the game.

Once it started to force turnovers and began to give the La Conner snipers less time to set up, Coupeville kick-started its own offense as well.

Stone rained down 11 of her game-high 22 points in the second quarter and the Wolves went on a 22-9 tear over the final seven minutes of the first half.

And it wasn’t just the big dog who ate, as Kellner drilled a trey and slipped under the defense for a layup off of a sneaky in-bounds pass.

Freshman Lindsey Roberts banged home a pair of buckets as well, with one coming off of gorgeous pass from Mia Littlejohn, who kept La Conner guessing all night as she zigged and zagged while running the Wolf offense.

Having reclaimed the lead right before the half, Coupeville completely shut down the Braves for much of the third quarter, holding them scoreless for nearly six minutes.

While they couldn’t pull away from a smart, veteran squad, the Wolves used two feathery free throws from Tiffany Briscoe to close out the third with a 32-27 advantage.

That set up the fourth, the wild finish and a celebration that included a host of former Wolf greats who were home on winter break.

Stone added 10 boards and three blocks to go with her 22 points, while Kellner (nine points, three rebounds), Roberts (four points, three boards), Tiffany Briscoe (two points, seven rebounds) and Littlejohn (two points, two steals, five assists) all filled up the stat sheet.

After a three-week stretch in which the Wolves played only two games — and won both of them — they will get back to a more consistent schedule with three games next week.

First up is a trip to Port Townsend Tuesday for a conference game which will determine sole possession of first place in the 1A Olympic League.

Read Full Post »

“We won’t turn down our win!!”

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , , on December 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Tiffany Briscoe stepped up and hit (John Fisken photo)

   Tiffany Briscoe “stepped up and knocked down some big shots for us” Tuesday night, helping Coupeville nip Vashon Island. (John Fisken photo)

David King knows how the game is played.

The Coupeville High School girls’ basketball coach has been around long enough to know when to walk away and just be grateful.

You tuck a win in your pocket — like the Wolves 36-29 non-conference triumph at Vashon Island Tuesday — and you get your team to the ferry before anyone asks for it back.

Cause a win is a win is a win.

“I’ve never heard of a coach or team turning down an ugly win, and we won’t turn down our win tonight,” King said. “But is was not a pretty game for us.”

The third straight victory for the Wolves, it lifted them to 5-2, but it didn’t come easily.

Stuck in the middle of a stretch where they will play just one game in nearly a three-week span — Coupeville last played Dec. 11 when it beat Klahowya and won’t play again until Dec. 30 — the Wolves looked rusty.

“Tonight we played like we haven’t had a game in a week and a half,” King admitted. “It was a struggle all game, with an exception of about the first two minutes coming out of halftime.”

Both teams shot poorly in the early going, with Coupeville clinging to a 6-4 lead after one quarter and the teams tied at 15 at the half.

Despite getting numerous opportunities at the free throw line — the Wolves were in the bonus before the opening quarter was done — Coupeville couldn’t pull away.

A huge culprit was their cold shooting touch, especially at the charity stripe, where they hit on just 3 of 17 first-half attempts.

“We moved the ball well,” King said. “The problem was our shooting and not making the adjustments to their height.

“We drove, pulled up too close to a taller defender and tried to shoot over them,” he added. “They had three to four blocks in the first four minutes of the game.”

Once they started stepping back, the Wolves got their shots off, but spent most of the first half bouncing the ball off the rim.

“When we did get a clean shot up we started rushing and it was like shooting a beach ball into a cup,” King said. “Nothing was falling and many shots were way off.”

A couple of big second-quarter buckets from sophomore point guard Mia Littlejohn, and a team-wide show of aggressiveness, kept the Wolves close heading into the break.

Once there, King tinkered with a few things.

“At halftime we wanted to improve our defense, move the ball better on offense and improve our free throws,” he said. “We do those things like I believe we are capable, we take control of the game.”

And they did, in spurts at least.

Coupeville hit pay dirt immediately on the first play of the second half, with Makana Stone delivering “a great feed from the high post” to Tiffany Briscoe, who banged home a four-foot baseline jumper.

The Wolves used a run of steals to push the lead out to six, gave a bit back, then got a huge trey from Kailey Kellner to end the third.

Kellner stayed hot in the fourth, swishing a three-ball and converting free throws, including one on a technical foul called on Vashon’s coach.

The Pirates focused on slowing down Stone, who came into the game averaging nearly 19 points a game, and while the Wolf senior tallied a game-high 14, she had to earn every one of them.

A huge key to the win was getting solid scoring support from her running mates, and they responded.

Littlejohn banged home eight, Kellner dropped in seven, Briscoe hit for six and Lauren Grove added a free throw to round out the scoring.

King has been working with Briscoe, a ferocious rebounder and scrapper, to embrace becoming more of a scoring threat and the work paid off at Vashon.

“All game long Makana had two to three girls draped all over her when she was in the post. She had a battle all game long,” King said. “The good thing is Tiffany stepped up and knocked down some big shots for us.”

He also praised Littlejohn for doing “a great job of anticipating passes and getting some timely steals for us.”

While the win wasn’t necessarily one for the highlight reel, it was a win. Now the next week will go towards getting back into a groove.

“Tonight was a frustrating game and we have to get better if we want to continue winning,” King said.

“We have La Conner next Wednesday. They will be a very tough team and well disciplined,” he added. “We need to find our way again to the team that played our second through fifth games earlier.

“If we do that, we can compete with teams like La Conner.”

Read Full Post »

Smile (or glare) for the camera!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , , on December 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Girls varsity (John Fisken photos)

   Four-year starter Makana Stone (bottom) is joined by (top to bottom) Lauren Rose, Allison Wenzel, Lindsey Roberts, Syler Lawrence, Kyla Briscoe and (l to r) Mia Littlejohn, Lauren Grove, Kailey Kellner, Tiffany Briscoe. (John Fisken photos)

Girls JV

   Top to bottom, l to r, JV players Brisa Herrera, Ashlie Shank, Nicole Lester, Ema Smith, coaches Amy and David King, Sarah Wright, Maddy Hilkey, Lindsey Laxton, Brittany Powers.

boys varsity

   Varsity coach Anthony Smith (bottom) with top to bottom, Jared Helmstadter, JJ Johnson, DeAndre Mitchell, Hunter Smith, Desmond Bell, Dante Mitchell and (l to r) Risen Johnson, Gabe Wynn, Ryan Griggs, Wiley Hesselgrave, Jordan Ford.

boys jv

   JV players, top to bottom, l to r, Ariah Bepler, Luke Merriman, Beauman Davis, James Vidoni, Hunter Downes, Andre Avila, Ty Eck, Brian Shank, Gabe Eck.

Cameron Toomey-Stout, the only one of 39 Wolf hoops players not to be present on head shot day.

   Cameron Toomey-Stout, the only one of 39 Wolf hoops players not to be present on head shot day.

Well, we almost nailed the landing.

On the night travelin’ photo man John Fisken captured head shots of the Coupeville High School basketball players, 38 of 39 athletes were on hand.

Sophomore Cameron Toomey-Stout, who has been pulling double-duty while performing in “The Nutcracker,” was the lone Wolf to go AWOL.

But, when he’s working his rear off that hard to make both the hoops and dance communities happy, we can’t leave him out, so he gets his own photo.

Which might have been his plan the whole time.

Cameron is pretty dang smart, after all.

Read Full Post »

The wall doesn’t tell all!!

Posted in Hall o' Fame, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 20, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Georgie Smith (51)

   Georgie Smith (#51, top, back row) joins (l to r, bottom) Ben Etzell, Makana Stone, Chris Tumblin and Tom Eller (cap) as crafters of Hall-worthy moments.

When I first started my Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, there was one quick dissenter.

His argument?

The “athletic history of the school is already up on the gym walls.”

And right then I knew I really, really needed to do this thing.

Why you ask?

Because what is up on the CHS gym walls is a mere fraction of this town’s sports history, and, if that is the only thing newcomers have to go off of, they’ll be reading one slim chapter out of a really thick book.

I mean, start with the banners on the wall in the gym itself, which stretch all the way back to … 1990.

You’re going to tell me the school never won a single title in the ’40s? ’50s? ’60s? ’70s? ’80s? Bull crap.

Just because the school has never researched those titles and hung banners (say, for the undefeated ’74 CHS football team) doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

And what of teams that had amazing seasons, such as the 2009-2010 Wolf boys’ basketball squad, which went 16-5, but lost out on a title banner by the slimmest of margins? Is that season not worthy of remembrance?

Head down the hallway, where the Athlete of the Year winners hang, and it’s impressive. But not complete.

Many great Wolf athletes never won that honor, for a variety of reasons. Some years (or decades) were stacked with multiple should-be winners, while in others, like with the Oscars, the winners were just flat-out the wrong choice.

And I could go on and on, but, eventually, we need to get to today’s honorees, the members of the 26th class to be inducted into my virtual hall o’ reclaimed history.

Keeping in that spirit, I’m veering off a bit today and inducting no athletes or coaches or teams or contributors, but instead, five moments.

Two memorable quotes, one moment of ultimate sacrifice, one quirky reminder it’s all fun and games and one transcendent season which never got its just due.

All five of which you would have no freakin’ clue about from looking at the gym walls.

For their contributions to our living history, we welcome Chris Tumblin, Georgie Smith, Ben Etzell, Tom Eller and Makana Stone. After this, you can find their contributions atop this blog, under the Legends banner.

We kick things off with our quotemeisters.

Tumblin, who’s already in the Hall with the state champion Little League team he coached, has always been a dependable go-to guy for words of wisdom and wit.

On this day, we remember him for an immortal quote he delivered after watching Josh Bayne wreck folks in a Wolf football game.

“Josh had one tackle on a receiver, folded him in half like a cheap hooker who was punched in the gut by her pimp. He had to sit out for awhile and wait for his liver to start working again.”

How is that not emblazoned on the entrance to the CHS locker rooms? I’d pay a dollar to see that.

Smith, an ’89 CHS grad who went on to work as a journalist before returning to farm the prairie quite successfully for many years now, is on a very short list of former Wolf athletes who declined my invite to reminisce about their prep sports days.

Her response to my inquiry remains, far and away, the best dismissal I ever got.

“Well, if there was one thing I sucked at David, it was high school sports.

“So if you want to do a story about how in a small town EVERYBODY gets to play on the basketball team (even if you can’t dribble to save your life) or the volleyball team (even if you were scared shit-less every time somebody spiked the ball at you) that would be me.

“I can tell you the story about the ONE TIME I tried to steal the ball in basketball and it was so ridiculous that when the play was over I looked over to see my coach with his head between his knees laughing til he cried. So if so, sure.”

Well, now I want to hear her other stories even more.

Our third moment came via Eller, who was a pretty dang good softball coach and teacher. My memory of him, though, comes from the football press box in the early ’90s.

CHS didn’t have a buzzer to announce the end of quarters at the time, so instead, Eller would fire off a starters pistol to alert the players and refs.

Every single time (at least the way I remember it) he would lean out through what was then an open press box window and tell fans to cover their ears.

Then, huge grin on his face, he would wait until they assumed it was safe to uncover their ears, at which point he would suddenly fire the pistol overhead, causing them all to jump. Then he would laugh and laugh.

It worked every time, and remains one of the best memories I have of covering high school sports.

Would you know about it from looking at the gym walls? Heck no. Hall worthy? Heck yeah!

Our fourth inductee, Etzell, was a standout athlete, a Cascade Conference MVP in baseball, a high-scoring machine in basketball and a state tourney vet in tennis. At some point, he’ll probably make the Hall for all that.

For the moment, we’re going to honor him for the time he ripped off his knee caps.

Playing a doubles match against South Whidbey in 2012, Etzell, channeling his baseball heritage, threw himself (and his bare knees) airborne twice.

Cement and skin are not an ideal match (“Everyone who was watching went berserk, including me!!” said coach Ken Stange, a life-long tennis ace who admitted he had never, and would never, replicate the feat), but Etzell converted both shots, then spent the rest of the season covered in horrifying-looking leg wounds.

Etzell had a lot of big moments as a Wolf, but, frankly, that’s how we’ll always remember him — bloody, unbowed, a one-of-a-kind maniac who played with abandon and never, ever backed down from a challenge.

And then we arrive at our final moment, a five-week span from Mar. 21-April 27, 2012, in which Stone, then a Wolf freshman, started her high school track career by winning her first 28 races.

No one else in CHS history has come remotely close to her run, not even state champs like Kyle and Tyler King, Jon Chittim or Amy Mouw.

Whether it was the 100, 200, 400 or the relays (she ran in the 4 x 100, 4 x 200 and 4 x 400), Stone was first, and only first, every time she stepped on the track until she finally ran into a mammoth field of seasoned state vets from 4A, 3A and 2A at the epic-sized Lake Washington Invitational.

She actually ran her best times of the season at that meet, went on to add four more wins that season and medaled at state in the 4 x 200.

Toss in a strong soccer season and an even better basketball season, and Stone was the biggest slam-dunk in school history to be named Athlete of the Year — an award which had NEVER before had any age restrictions attached to it.

Or so you, me and all the voting coaches who I talked to that year would have thought…

In Oscar terms, Stone “losing” that year was equal to Saving Private Ryan “losing” to Shakespeare in Love. A travesty wrapped in an abomination.

Go look at those gym walls, as our naysayer preferred, and you would have no clue of what a tragedy went down that year.

Good thing we have another way to celebrate our athletic legacy.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »