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Posts Tagged ‘North Sound Conference’

Matt Stevens and the Coupeville defense stood tall Friday, as the Wolves came dangerously close to toppling King’s in a gridiron thriller. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Do not go gentle into that good night … especially if a deer is leading the way.

Throwing the fear of God into the Christian school boys, the Coupeville High School football squad came within a play or two of pulling off one of the great comeback wins of all time Friday, before running out of time in a 20-14 loss to visiting King’s.

The Wolves almost made it all the way back from a 20-0 fourth-quarter deficit, scoring two late touchdowns, one with a major assist from a hoofed mammal who wandered onto the gridiron in search of an apple, then ended up possibly dropping road apples as the lead blocker on a 95-yard TD run.

The narrow loss, coming in the North Sound Conference opener for both teams, drops the Wolves to 0-1 in league play, 3-2 coverall.

King’s (1-0, 1-4), Cedar Park Christian (1-0, 3-1) and South Whidbey (1-0, 4-1) are tied for the early conference lead, while CHS, Sultan (0-1, 1-4) and Granite Falls (0-1, 0-5) sit a game back.

South Whidbey nipped Sultan 21-20 on a Kody Newman Hail Mary pass in overtime Friday, while CPC held off Granite 20-8.

The battle in Cow Town belonged to the visiting Knights for three quarters, as senior running back Josiah Seirs slammed across the line for a TD run in each quarter.

Other than a clanked PAT after the second score, King’s was in control, giving up a fair amount of yards to the Wolves, but bending and not breaking.

And then the deer appeared and everything went all to holy heck.

It came on the very first play of the fourth quarter, as Sean Toomey-Stout waited to receive a kickoff from the Knights, who had scored with a second on the clock in the third frame.

As “The Torpedo” bounced in place, the ball went airborne, then it plunged from the sky, right as our deer hero, who’ll we call Jebediah, came bounding from behind the soccer goal in the far end zone.

The football hit Toomey-Stout in the fingers, skipping away. The crowd wailed.

And Jebediah the deer, doing his best Arnie, screamed “Come with me if you want to live!!” and headed up the right side of the field on a dead run.

Circling back to snatch the ball off the turf at about the four-and-a-half yard line, Toomey-Stout sprinted from left to right, as Jebediah almost creamed the King’s kicker at mid-field.

Shedding one would-be tackler, and then another, and then two more, “The Torpedo,” under a full head of steam now, whipped down the same path carved out by the deer, almost catching his unexpected lead blocker.

As Toomey-Stout roared into the end zone, the crammed CHS stands rocked so enthusiastically the sound system in the press box bounced two inches off the counter it sits on.

Meanwhile, PA announcer Willie Smith, stopping in mid-chomp on a mini candy bar, dropped a perfectly-timed (and probably not fully-appreciated) “Oh, deer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

And Jebediah?

He stopped for a moment right outside the end zone in which the Wolves were now pummeling Toomey-Stout, then leaned in and whispered to a CHS coach, “I’ll see you guys next week. Just leave the apples in the usual place.”

With Wolf soccer star turned football kicker Derek Leyva hammering the PAT kick high into the night sky to cap the play, a potential blowout was suddenly transformed.

And Coupeville responded.

Leyva pinned King’s deep on its side of the field with his kickoff, before the Wolf defense forced a three-and-out to get the ball back.

With the ball in his hands, Coupeville QB Dawson Houston led his team downfield, mixing a couple of quick swing passes with a couple of power runs from Toomey-Stout.

Facing third-and-goal from the 10, Houston dodged the incoming pressure, stood tall and pegged a pass through the heart of the defense to Gavin Knoblich, who made a sensational jumping catch to bring his squad back within a single score.

After Levya tacked on another extra point, he mashed a long, slicing kick-off, giving Matt Hilborn time to haul butt down-field and level the returner as he made his first tentative step.

Pinned deep in their own territory once again, King’s went to a pass play on third-and-six, but Wolf senior Alex Turner snapped off the receiver’s head, hauling him down well short of the marker and forcing a punt.

Five minutes on the clock, the ball in their hands, and their still-new stadium shaking like Candlestick Park during the earthquake that rocked the ’89 World Series, the impossible seemed possible.

A comeback for the ages, against one of the private school boogeymen that made life miserable for Coupeville back in the day.

It was there, and then it wasn’t, as not every prayer gets answered.

Houston hit Knoblich on another pass play, but a pair of sacks pushed the Wolves back and CHS couldn’t pull off a big play on fourth down, despite a little razzle dazzle with Houston lobbing the ball to Dane Lucero, who then fired an incomplete pass downfield.

King’s needed two first downs to run out the final three-minutes plus, and they got them, barely, with Seirs plunging through the line to convert on a fourth-and-five to cap things.

Through the first three quarters, Coupeville moved the ball well, with Toomey-Stout and Hilborn making for a very-effective one-two rushing attack.

But an interception, a missed field goal and a reffing brain fart, on which the guys in stripes ignored blatant interference by King’s on a punt, kept the Wolves from getting the ball into the end zone through the first 36 minutes of action.

While Seirs rambled in for his scores, the Wolf defense was electric most of the night, with Turner, Lucero, Matt Stevens, Andrew Martin, Gavin St Onge, Ryan Labrador, Chris Battaglia and Co. keeping the Knights largely bottled up.

Hilborn stuffed a King’s drive at the very last moment, stripping the ball and recovering the fumble inside Coupeville’s 10-yard line, while Shane Losey and Knoblich teamed up on the most thrilling play not involving a deer.

That came mid-way through the third period, when Losey, defending a pass, clipped the ball with one hand, popped it skyward, then juggled it from hand to hand (all while still in motion) before bumping it in the direction of Knoblich.

Spearing the gift out of the air, the Wolf junior pulled in the interception as he, Losey and the King’s receiver all went to the turf in a pile.

While he wanted a true win, and not just a moral victory, Coupeville coach Marcus Carr was still pleased with the never-say-die attitude shown by his team.

“It was an outstanding effort by our guys,” he said. “It’s a process and we want to keep improving, which is what we’re doing.

“The fight is there, we just need to tighten things up a bit on some of our drives; our running backs played hard and other than a play or two, our defense played outstanding – I’m amped at that,” Carr added. “I’m as happy as I could possibly be after losing a game.”

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Wolf senior Lindsey Roberts launched a 30-yard missile Thursday, netting the 16th goal of her stellar prep soccer career. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

Mallory Kortuem, directing traffic in an earlier game, held her own against a physical Granite Falls squad.

Lindsey Roberts can mash a ball.

The Coupeville High School senior possesses a golden leg, one capable of launching a soccer ball like a missile from the 30-yard line, before snapping it off and neatly dropping said ball right over the shoulder of a flailing goaltender.

She’s done it before and she did it again Thursday night, providing the game’s biggest bang in a rough-and-tumble bout with visiting Granite Falls.

It was the kind of night when an otherwise easy-going Wolf booter paced back and forth after the game, telling a teammate “I was so close to squaring up on that girl!”

It was also the kind of night when, despite Roberts cannon shot, and solid work in net by backup goalie Mollie Bailey, Coupeville fell 4-1.

The loss drops the Wolves to 1-4 in North Sound Conference play, 1-7-1 overall.

CHS sits in fifth-place in the six-team league.

Granite Falls used a stingy defense (and a few well-placed elbows) to improve to 3-1 in league action.

The Tigers are lurking in second-place, a game-and-a-half off of the pace of defending 1A state champ King’s, which is 5-0 after hammering South Whidbey 5-0 Thursday night.

The match-up against Granite Falls, the first home game for Coupeville after four straight on the road, opened with a bang, and a bad one at that.

Attacking right off the opening tip, the Tigers slammed home a goal less than a minute into play, slipping in a sizzler from the left side on a breakaway.

With starting goalie Sarah Wright off on a college visit, Bailey, a sophomore, got a rare start in the net and largely held her own, making several nice saves as the evening played out.

Mollie did a solid job,” said Coupeville coach Kyle Nelson. “Very nice to see.”

Bailey, who made an impressive snag on a ball during a multi-player rumble in front of the net, teamed with her defenders to clamp down hard on the Tigers after the opening goal, holding them scoreless the rest of the way until halftime.

Coupeville had trouble getting many shots of its own in the first half, however (something which would change after the break), and the game remained stuck at 1-0 for almost 40 minutes.

Wolf freshman Kiara Contreras had a nice run down the right side, and Genna Wright fought the good fight in a crowd of sharp elbows, but nothing was going in for CHS.

The Wolves, who have struggled to score in recent games, finally broke the seal on the net in stoppage time.

Roberts set up on a free kick, and with everyone in the stadium glued to her every move, brought back memories of former Wolf Jenn Spark, who used to routinely crush long balls in the same manner.

The Granite net-minder jumped as the ball came in hot, but had no chance to stop the rocket as it curved neatly into the back of the net for Roberts’ third goal of the season, and 16th of her stellar career.

The goal seemed to suck a lot of the air out of the visitors in the moment, but halftime, which arrived mere seconds later, saved them.

Revived by the break (and maybe orange slices?), the Tigers pushed their attack in the second half, slipping home the tiebreaker six minutes in, before tacking on cushion goals in the 57th minute and in stoppage time.

CHS had multiple chances to generate goals of its own in the offense-heavy second half, but the soccer gods were unforgiving.

Avalon Renninger, Wright and Roberts all had quality looks, and snappy shots, only to have the ball ding off the crossbar or skip by the net by a matter of inches.

Not making things better, the Wolves appeared to have a second goal, only to have the lead ref be the only person in the stadium, including all the Granite players and coaches, to think the ball hadn’t crossed the threshold.

After the Tiger goalie lost the ball, another Granite booter went into the net to kick it out, but did so in the manner of someone who thinks their team has just given up a score and is returning the ball to midfield.

To the surprise of all, and the disappointment of Wolf supporters, the ref acted as if nothing had happened, and, after a few seconds of everyone struck in neutral, play picked back up.

Nelson would have liked the goal, but didn’t hold the non-call as a defining moment.

As he pointed out, there are a lot of angles in a stadium, and while it might have looked like a score from many of them, it’s possible (maybe…) the ref had the one angle where the ball didn’t get across the line.

Instead of being angry, Nelson instead chose to focus on his team’s near misses, which showed an aggressiveness on offense which may yet benefit the Wolves.

“It was nice to see us step up against a very physical team. That’s a good sign,” he said. “We had some good shots that just wouldn’t go in.

“I’ve told the girls, if we keep getting good looks and shots, they will eventually start to go in. They just need to keep firing.”

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Wolf junior Hannah Davidson had seven kills Wednesday as Coupeville High School volleyball rallied for a five-set win over Granite Falls. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The better team won Wednesday.

It just took a lot longer to get there than we all might have expected.

Coming off an epic, emotion-packed, five-set win the night before against their arch-rivals, the Coupeville High School volleyball squad looked dazed, disorientated and out of sorts for the first two sets against visiting Granite Falls.

But the Wolves are undefeated for two reasons – they have considerable talent and they don’t give in easily.

Digging deep and avoiding a stunning upset, Coupeville rallied for a 20-25, 21-25, 25-12, 25-22, 15-9 win, sending their vocal fans home with relieved smiles on their faces, and quelling at least some of their coach’s angina.

“I’m extremely excited we turned it around,” said a still somewhat frazzled Cory Whitmore. “It is very easy to let things get away when you’re shell-shocked, but we displayed a lot of fight and heart.

“That will be very important as we go forward,” he added. “We expect a lot of ourselves, and we expect to win, and sometimes you have to find a way to do that … and we did.”

The win lifts Coupeville to 3-0 in North Sound Conference play, 5-0 overall.

The Wolves sit in a tie atop the league with defending 1A state champ King’s (3-0, 5-1), which swept South Whidbey Wednesday in straight sets.

The Knights lone loss was a four-set defeat at the hands of North Creek, a 4A Kingco school currently sitting with a flawless 7-0 record.

Sole possession of first-place in the NSC will be on the line next Tuesday, Oct. 2, when Coupeville travels to Shoreline for the first of two regular-season meetings with their private school foes. King’s comes to Whidbey Oct. 23.

Wednesday’s warm-up match became a wake-up, after Coupeville was caught sleep-walking for close to an hour.

The less said about the first two sets, the better, as very little went positively for the Wolves as they tried to adjust to a team with a unique playing style.

After facing a hard-hitting South Whidbey squad Tuesday, the Wolves ran up against a Granite Falls unit which dinked, poked, blooped and tipped the ball all night, making up for a lack of raw aggression by keeping everything in play.

CHS trailed from start to finish in the first set, and had just a (very) brief 1-0 lead in the second frame before that also got away from them.

Hannah Davidson had several nice tips for winners in the early going, but while big hitters Emma Smith, Ashley Menges and Maya Toomey-Stout were able to lash a few sizzling spikes, they were few and far between.

Something finally seemed to spark for Coupeville in the third set, as Scout Smith led off things by becoming the first Wolf to make a sustained run at the service stripe.

With Menges and Emma Smith pulling off “surprise, you thought the ball was going that way, but it really was going the other way” tips, Scout Smith reeled off six straight points to open the set.

After that, the Wolves began to drop the hammer more frequently, whacking winners off of their rivals arms, legs and torsos, erasing most of the smiles on the Granite side of the net.

Unable to blunt Coupeville’s power game, or match it, the visitors backpedaled, continued to throw junk in the air, and watched in horror as their advantage rapidly slipped away.

Zoe Trujillo popped into the game and immediately connected on a winner, Davidson continued to be a strong force up front and Toomey-Stout had the cannon fully firing by that point.

Coupeville’s service game, which had been uncharacteristically off in the early going, clicked from the third set on, as well.

Chelsea Prescott zinged a wicked ace that smacked the floor and curled around a would-be receiver, before Menges displayed some prime-time power.

One of “Smashley’s” serves exploded underneath a rival’s feet with so much fury it marred the glossy finish on the gym floor and set the Granite player’s shoelaces on fire.

The fourth set was chock full of raw power, 99.3% of it coming from Coupeville’s gunners, though the Tigers made things interesting by rallying from a 20-12 deficit to knot things up at 21-21.

Granite thought it had retaken the lead on the very next point, but celebrated prematurely, as Emma Mathusek made a stunning dig on a ball that looked unplayable.

With a flick of her wrists, the unsung Wolf junior, who does all the back row dirty work that makes the highlight reel kills possible, sent the ball curling back over the net, where it sliced through three defenders and dropped in for a monumental point.

With the bleeding stopped, Coupeville rode an ace from Toomey-Stout and a kill from Trujillo to force a fifth set and completely deflate the last bit of air out of Granite.

The visitors did briefly hold a 3-1 lead in the final frame, but a couple of sweet tips from Prescott pulled the Wolves back even, then Toomey-Stout started killin’ girls.

The longer the match went, the harder “The Gazelle” seemed to hit, and her spikes in the fifth set were of the type which ripped out souls and sent the Wolf student cheering section into hysterics.

The yells just got louder when Lucy Sandahl made a splashy cameo, launching a wicked service ace to push CHS to the edge of victory.

And the final blow?

Vintage Toomey-Stout, flying up the middle, launching airborne, hanging there for an eternity, then introducing her clenched fist to the hapless ball, blasting a match-closing spike right through the heart of the Granite defense.

It was the 15th and final kill of her night, helping her top a balanced stat sheet which included 12 kills from Emma Smith, seven from Davidson and five from Prescott.

Mathusek racked up 18 digs, Scout Smith was the motor which made the Wolves run with 35 silky assists, and Prescott paced CHS at the service line with five aces, while Menges and Emma Smith added four apiece.

 

JV nipped:

Missing several ill players, the Wolf young guns took the opening set 25-17, then faded, falling 25-16, 25-10.

The loss drops the JV to 1-2 in league play, 2-3 overall.

The opening set was a mix of big hits, with Maddie Vondrak, Trujillo and Willow Vick hammering away, while Vondrak used her jumping ability and long fingers to rise above the net and continually snuff out Granite shots.

Jaimee Masters put the set on ice with a strong run at the service line, and things seemed to be completely in Coupeville’s favor.

It wasn’t to be, though, as Granite completely flipped the switch after that, limiting the Wolf highlights to a couple more put-aways by Trujillo and two perfectly-lobbed running tips by Vick.

 

Superheroes live amongst us:

The best play of the night didn’t come in either match, but right at the tail end of warm-ups for the varsity match.

Coupeville had its HUDL camera set up right behind the court on a tripod, and someone, or something, slammed into it, knocking the camera free.

As it fell towards the unforgiving gym floor, a half-scream went up, several Wolves lurched in slow motion, and then Vondrak, looking every bit the part of a superhero, came flying past multiple teammates and snagged the equipment mere centimeters away from it kissing the floor.

And then promptly slow-strutted away, possibly whispering “I’m Batman!!” under her breath as she went.

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Maya Toomey-Stout lashed a team-high 15 kills Tuesday as Coupeville volleyball pulled out a five-set win at South Whidbey. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

18 years to the day she was born, Emma Smith committed cold-blooded murder.

And her mom loved every freakin’ second of it.

When you go to carve the tombstone, include the name of every South Whidbey High School volleyball fan, who all went deathly quiet at the end of Tuesday night’s varsity volleyball match against visiting Coupeville.

The Falcon faithful hooted and hollered, and sported some classic Hawaiian shirts, but even the brightly-colored duds couldn’t save their team, because when Smith’s final, artful tip dropped to the floor and skidded away, it capped a five-set war and a major win for the Wolves.

Winning a battle of undefeated teams, CHS clambered back on the bus for the short, joyous ride home wearing grins, carrying birthday cupcakes and celebrating a 19-25, 25-20, 25-21, 24-26, 15-12 win.

The victory lifts the Wolves to 2-0 in North Sound Conference play, keeping them in a first-place tie with defending 1A state champs King’s, and 4-0 overall.

It also leaves them as the only fall sports team in the new six-team league, in any sport, to still be undefeated.

“I’m thrilled for the girls and this hard-fought win,” said Coupeville coach Cory Whitmore. “They have been putting in an incredible amount of work and preparation, so to earn a win on the road is very exciting.

“I thought that mentally we handled what they threw at us very well, able to turn around and come back at them with an attack of our own,” he added. “We did strong and smart work from the service line, attacking weakness and difficult areas, helping us to limit their attacks at the net.”

Coming on the heels of an epic JV match which left a buzz lingering in the gym, the teams came out fired up and ready to rumble from the first serve.

Back-to-back big plays, one a missile of a spike off the fingertips of Maya Toomey-Stout, the other a scorching service ace from Ashley Menges, helped stake Coupeville to an early lead.

But after Chelsea Prescott came rumbling in from the side to pound home a put-away to stretch the margin to 10-7, the Falcons regained control.

A long, successful run at the service stripe, and some teeth-rattling kills from South Whidbey senior Emma Leggett, fired up the local student section, and once the Falcons retook the lead, they never gave it back.

Menges, operating as her alter ego, “Smashley,” did her best to keep the Wolves in the set, thrashing and slicing the ball, while Emma Smith froze the defense with a note-perfect tip, but it wasn’t quite enough.

Coupeville only dropped one set across its first three matches, but if losing the first set hurt, it never showed on the faces of the Wolves.

Instead, they immediately went to work, with big winners from Emma Smith, Toomey-Stout and Prescott, all off of flawless sets from the nimble Scout Smith, who was everywhere at once.

A back-and-forth second set hung in the balance, with CHS up just 19-18, when the birthday girl made her presence felt.

Stopping a South Whidbey rally cold, Emma Smith rose up above the net with a mighty bound and pasted the ball off the back line for a winner, then strolled away, casually flicking a loose strand of hair over her ear, eyes blazing with fury and joy as Menges rushed to bear-hug her.

That play set off Coupeville’s most sustained run of the night, as it closed out the second set (on a knee-shredding spike from an exuberant Toomey-Stout), then surged to take a tight third frame.

Hannah Davidson was a key player in that third set, rising up to help turn away several would-be Falcon winners with key stuffs.

With both teams coming full tilt, punching, counter-punching, then finding a little more gas to swing from the heels, the fourth set was brutal, and beautiful.

The lead flipped back and forth while Emma Smith and Menges tried to out-do each other in the ferocity of their kills, only to have Toomey-Stout literally go and tattoo a ball off a rival’s forehead, dropping the Falcon to her knees.

Not to be outdone, Prescott, who overcame a wayward contact lens, dropped in a quirky hook shot that crawled through the air at the speed Matthew McConaughey drawls his words, before skipping away for a point.

Her next winner? A spike that, like Toomey-Stout’s bullet, bounced off a Falcon noggin and knocked some brain cells loose.

Even with all that, however, South Whidbey eked out a set win, even if it took them three ties to nab the deciding point against the pesky Wolves.

If the fifth and deciding set was the shortest, as the high school mercy rule dictated it only go to 15 and not 25, it still managed to pack in just as many plot twists and stunning reversals as the first four frames.

At first, the Falcons, riding a high coming out of the fourth set, seemed like they would run away with things, jumping out to a quick 5-2 lead.

The SWHS student section was rockin’.

But “Smashley” was … smashing.

Menges laced a winner that sliced off a few fingers as it carved its path of destruction, before Davidson and Scout Smith teamed up on a stuff, and the Wolves were on the comeback trail.

Cue the angina and the fingernail-chewin’, as the two squads fought through five ties down the final stretch run.

The last stalemate came at 11-11, and it came courtesy Emma Smith, who buried a huge spike that tore up the right corner, exploding at the feet of a volunteer lineman who had been super-enthusiastic on pro-Falcon calls all night.

This time, not so happy.

Nice.

As good as her teammates had been around her all night — and they were very good, from Scout Smith doling out 27 assists to Emma Mathusek scraping 17 digs off the floor — in the final moments, it was time for the birthday girl to blow out all the candles by snuffing every last Falcon hope and dream.

She followed the spike with a stuff at the net to give CHS a lead it would never relinquish, and then came about as perfect a moment as you can get without operating off a script.

South Whidbey, down 14-12, put the ball into play, and the rally went on, and then on some more, 12 players fighting to their last drop of sweat.

In the stands, Konni Smith, her voice strained by a night of screaming for her daughter, suddenly found one final holler.

Because, out there on the court, Emma Smith, twirling into the air, arms above her, fingertips quivering with anticipation, found the ball in mid-flight, stopped time, and flicked the biggest shot she’s nailed in a career full of nailing big shots.

The ball hit the ground, the Falcons whiffed, Konni and associates lost their minds and Emma’s cool as a cucumber younger sister, Savannah, almost looked up from her phone.

Almost.

Down on the court, after the celebration, the hugs, the screams, and a few words from their busting-with-pride coach, the Wolves exited the gym the way they entered.

As a tightly-knit group of strong young women who are buying into their roles, sacrificing for each other and enjoying the ride, a win and a cupcake at a time.

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Freshman Kiara Contreras, who played strongly Tuesday, is part of a young Wolf soccer squad. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The net has been unforgiving.

As a young Coupeville High School girls soccer squad finds its way in a new league and a new season, putting the ball in the back of the net has been a work in progress.

Despite a stellar defensive effort on the road Tuesday, the Wolves were unable to generate matching offense, and fell 2-0 to arch-rival South Whidbey.

Both Falcon goals came in the first half, as the hosts jumped out to an early lead and never relented.

It was the fifth time in eight games Coupeville has been shut out this season.

The loss, which came in the team’s fourth-straight game away from home, drops the Wolves to 1-3 in North Sound Conference play, 1-6-1 overall.

CHS sits in fifth place in the six-team league, but is just a game-and-a-half out of second, where South Whidbey and Granite Falls are knotted up at 2-1.

The Wolves get a chance to play at home for the first time in two weeks Thursday.

The opponent will be Granite Falls, giving Coupeville an immediate chance to make up some ground in the standings.

If nothing else, CHS coach Kyle Nelson wants his team to keep chipping away and earning the chance to fire on opposing goalies.

“We’re still a developing team, but we’re improving,” he said. “Now I’d like to see us get a few more shots on goal.”

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