Freshman Savina Wells poured in 12 points Saturday as Coupeville thrashed Friday Harbor on Senior Night. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
If it was a statement game, consider the statement delivered quite loudly.
Using a 26-0 rampage to blow things open Saturday, the Coupeville High School varsity girls basketball squad decimated visiting Friday Harbor 51-13.
The victory, coming in the regular-season finale and on Senior Night, lifts the Wolves to 6-4 in Northwest 2B/1B League action, 8-7 overall.
It also gives Coupeville a season sweep of the Wolverines and punches its ticket to the District 1/2 tourney.
As the second-seeded NWL 2B team, CHS opens districts at home Tuesday, Feb. 15 against Auburn Adventist (7-8) in a loser-out game.
Tipoff is 5:15 PM, and the winner advances to play La Conner (19-1) two nights later in the tourney title game, also to be played in Coupeville.
The Wolves went into action Saturday with a full roster, and a fair amount of emotion on display.
Seniors Abby Mulholland, Izzy Wells, Ja’Kenya Hoskins, and Audrianna Shaw were honored before the game, along with senior team managers Mckenna Somes and Leni Raduenz.
Both teams came out a bit offensively challenged, with the game sitting at 2-1 in favor of Coupeville more than two minutes into the game.
Friday Harbor then rifled a three-ball through the bottom of the net, giving the visitors their one, and only lead of the day.
At which point Coupeville coach Megan Smith nodded her head, ever so slightly, and her team went berserk.
It started with rebounds put back up and in by Izzy Wells and Carolyn Lhamon, and by the time it was done, Friday Harbor had gone scoreless for almost 13 minutes and the Wolves were up 28-4 with the halftime break bearing down.
The Wolves were ferocious on defense during the game-altering run.
Maddie Georges is a killer.
Shaw pilfered ball after ball, turning them into breakaway layups, while fab frosh Savina Wells emphatically rejected incoming shots thanks to her long reach and fingers o’ death.
Coupeville scored inside. It scored outside. It scored at will.
Whether it was Lhamon taking a pass from Savina Wells and powering her way through a thicket of defenders, or Shaw and Savina Wells draining back-to-back three-balls, Friday Harbor had no answer.
The Wolves crashed the boards with wild abandon, with Ja’Kenya Hoskins earning boisterous cheers from big sisters Jai’Lysa and Ja’Tarya.
Meanwhile Shaw and running mate Maddie Georges pestered the heck out of the Friday Harbor ballhandlers, driving them to distraction (and frequent turnovers).
CHS wasn’t done, either, truly putting the hammer down during a 21-3 tear in the third in which six different Wolves put the ball in the net.
Shaw rippled the nets on an elegant jumper, set up by the Wolves whipping the ball around the arc, from Hoskins to Izzy Wells to the wide-open shooter.
Then Savina Wells put on a demonstration of power and grace which bodes well for the future.
First she swished a three-ball from the right side — the net barely moving as the ball tumbled home to paydirt — then the freshman pulled off an eye-popping three-point play the hard way.
The youngest of the three Wells children drove the ball down the baseline, tossing up a high-arcing roller as she was being whacked from 2,000 different directions.
The ball skipped once, twice, three times, picking up paint flecks from multiple places on the rim, before plopping through in a moment which sent the Wolf boys hoops stars in the stands into hysterics.
Calmly flipping stray strands of hair behind both ears, Savina Wells eyeballed the Friday Harbor mashers who had tried to rearrange her face, then slid the dagger in, with the charity shot splashing home as her punctuation mark.
Though there was still one more epic moment to play out, as fellow frosh Katie Marti nailed a rainbow of a three-ball to provide Coupeville’s final points of the day.
The set-up for her trey?
Yet another offensive rebound from Savina Wells, who outreached the crowd to pluck the ball out of the heavens and deliver it to her fellow young gun.
Katie Marti rains three-ball death from the parking lot.
Coupeville had a very-balanced scoring attack, getting points from nine of 12 players to see the floor.
Shaw banked home 13, Savina Wells knocked down 12, and Izzy Wells, Lhamon, and Mulholland collected six points apiece.
Marti (3), Georges (2), Keiper (2), and Hoskins (1) also scored, with teammates Lyla Stuurmans, Mia Farris, and Gwen Gustafson bringing the heat on the defensive end of the floor.
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