Jada Heaton brought hustle and energy to the floor Saturday afternoon. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
Jada Heaton is a wrecking ball.
And that’s a good thing. A very good thing.
When the Coupeville High School freshman is on the floor for the Wolf JV girls basketball squad, she’s always hustling, always working, always poking balls away and scrambling after rebounds.
That kind of effort, which was also shown by her teammates Saturday afternoon, makes a loss easier to take.
Yes, the young Wolves, who were missing several players including leading scorer Madison McMillan, fell 40-17 to visiting South Whidbey, dropping their record to 2-6.
But the non-conference defeat to their next-door neighbors is tempered a bit by the growth shown by the Wolves.
Coupeville may have played its best ball in the game’s final two minutes — punctuated by Skylar Parker draining a gorgeous bank shot off the glass — and that fierce fight in a game long-since decided is a huge positive.
Give the South Whidbey JV credit.
The Falcons played with crisp precision and picked apart the defense with strong passes.
But the Wolves kept on the attack, even after falling behind 16-5 after one quarter of play.
The visitors scored 12 of those 16 points in the paint, lobbing the ball over the defense, while also yanking down more than their fair share of rebounds.
Coupeville held its own in the second quarter, winning the frame 6-5 behind a pair of buckets from sparkplug Katie Marti and a silky-smooth slash up the middle by Mia Farris.
But the basket refused to play nicely with the Wolves after that, as they were held to just free throws in the second half until Parker made her highlight reel-worthy shot.
Heaton and Co. continued to put out extra energy on defense, however, with Brooklyn Thayer coming up big on the boards.
Marti topped the scorebook for the Wolves with five points, with Thayer (4), Farris (3), Kayla Arnold (2), Parker (2), and Heaton (1) also scoring.
The active Wolf roster was rounded out by Edie Bittner and Reese Wilkinson, with the former getting a big roar from her cheering section after coming up strongly on the defensive end of the floor.
Kayla Arnold lets fly.
