Anthony Bergeron swoops under Sultan’s Giovonni Williams for two. (Shelli Trumbull photos)
Bodies were flying everywhere. Cheerleaders were shocked. CHS Principal Sheldon Rosenkrance (far left) barely flinched.
Yegads … where to begin?
171 combined points. Two technical fouls. Two slam dunks and at least one botched one.
Nick Streubel going off like a maniac in the fourth quarter, throwing down 16 points in six minutes, only stopping his assault on the basket after he crumpled to the ground and freaked out the crowd by grabbing his knee.
Which turned out to be fine, though The Big Hurt later emerged from the locker room with his ankle wrapped in ice.
A visit to Coupeville by perhaps the Cascade Conference’s best player and certainly its biggest ass (not the same player), all in one night.
And that’s just part of the story.
What we do know is that Sultan used a stunning run and gun offense Tuesday, led by the electric Giovonni Williams (he of the high flyin’ dunks, both made and once, spectacularly botched), to pour on the points.
Then the Turks withstood an almost more furious comeback by Coupeville — which rolled up 32 points in the fourth quarter — escaping with a 91-80 victory.
Though not all the drama was done at the final buzzer.
Sultan’s Cooper Beucherie, who had picked up a technical, fouled out moments after loudly telling teammates he’d see them on the bench.
On the way there, he kicked over a chair while running a constant war of words with Wolf fans.
Former CHS football star Caleb Valko was almost kicked out of the gym during the verbal scrum — after being screamed at by a school official for something said by someone else in the stands — while the tart Turk steadfastly refused to shake hands with any of the Wolves after the game.
An aggressive (and let’s admit it, often very effective) defender, the corn rowed Beucherie is Sultan’s answer to Ron Artest.
I’m sure Turk fans love him, and it’s hard not to give him credit, as he openly goads on opposing crowds and seems to love the screaming.
When he missed two technical free throws, after CHS coach Anthony Smith was dinged by a ref with a paper-thin shell who apparently doesn’t like being questioned, Beucherie heard the jeers rain down.
Smiling broadly, he waved to the crowd and then used the moment to fire up the Turk bench.
So hey, he’s an ass, but he owns it. Give the kid some credit. He knows what works.
Just like the calmer, but much-more-explosive Williams, who threw down 24 points with almost every one of them coming on a play that drew oohs and ahs, even from rival fans.
Coupeville senior Anthony Bergeron went at Williams several times, as the duo put on a can-you-top-this show.
Smiling rivals in the midst of a game that was otherwise rough and tumble — as any match-up with Sultan usually is — they were the main attraction.
Until the fourth quarter, when, down by 30, the Wolves got deadly serious and rocked Sultan back on its heels for a bit.
Streubel, easily the biggest boy on the court at 6-foot-3 and 285 pounds of gridiron-honed muscle, went off, snatching rebounds, spinning for soft jumpers in the paint and basically being unstoppable.
At one point he put together his own 10-4 run, scoring all of Coupeville’s points, then he turned point guard.
Bergeron fired an inbounds pass the length of the court to Streubel, who snagged it out of the air with one hand, then whirled, pump-faked a defender and spun the ball around the guy’s arm to a wide-open Wiley Hesselgrave.
Bang-boom, easy layup.
The good times came to a crashing halt when Streubel went down several plays later, crumpling and grabbing at his knee.
When he was able to walk off with the assistance of coach Dustin Van Velkinburgh and teammate Joel Walstad, a lot of the air that had left the gym came flooding back in.
Without Streubel in the game, Coupeville actually scored the final six points of the game, with Gavin O’Keefe’s three-pointer capping a 32-14 Wolf run in the fourth quarter.
Now 1-7 overall, 0-4 in Cascade Conference play, the Wolves spread their scoring between Streubel (18), Hesselgrave (16), Bergeron (14) Walstad (11), O’Keefe (9), Morgan Payne (7) and Aaron Trumbull (5).
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