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Posts Tagged ‘Orcas Island’

Anna Powers wheels and deals. (Julie Wheat photo)

They got tougher as the night went on.

The Coupeville High School JV girls’ basketball team played its strongest 16 minutes in the second half Friday on Orcas Island but couldn’t quite catch up to the Vikings.

Despite playing their hosts straight up after halftime, the Wolves ultimately fell 34-26 in a hotly contested conference clash.

With the loss, CHS slips to 0-1 in Northwest 2B/1B League play, 1-3 overall, and heads back home to square off with Mount Vernon Christian Tuesday night.

Orcas jumped out to a 10-7 lead after one quarter of action Friday, then stretched the lead out to 23-15 heading into the halftime break.

The Wolf girls responded with an admirable show of grit, however, winning the fourth quarter 7-2 to keep the second half scoring knotted up at 11 points per team.

Ten Coupeville players hit the floor for coach Alita Blouin, with Ava Lucero knocking down 11 points to lead the scoring attack.

Cami Van Dyke (4), Anna Powers (4), Finley Helm (2), Willow Leedy-Bonifas (2), Emma Cushman (2), and Elizabeth Marshall (1) put their names in the scoring column, with Olivia Hall, Taylor Marrs, and Allie Powers also earning floor time.

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Coupeville junior Haylee Armstrong rattled the rims for a team-high 14 points Friday night on Orcas Island. (Julie Wheat photo)

“We gotta make free throws.”

Coupeville High School varsity girls’ basketball coach Scout Smith, who was a precision shooter in her own playing days, could do little but watch in silent horror Friday as her squad gave one away on Orcas Island.

Despite getting to the line twice as many times as the host Vikings, the Wolves could not get the ball to stay in the basket, and it stung them badly in a 42-39 loss.

The defeat, coming in the Northwest 2B/1B League opener for both teams, drops CHS to 0-1 in conference action, 1-3 overall heading into a Tuesday home tilt with NWL powerhouse Mount Vernon Christian.

Friday’s fracas was decided at the charity stripe, and it could have been a blowout for Coupeville.

The Wolves earned 24 chances at the stripe to just 12 for Orcas — a rare case of the road team getting the benefit of the doubt — but the rim was unforgiving.

While the Vikings were just 5-12 with the action stopped, they still made two more free throws than their foes, as Coupeville netted just 3-24.

That blew a huge hole in the Wolves ability to hold on to the lead, or rally back in the final moments.

Up 13-10 after one quarter of play, with Haylee Armstrong going off for seven points to lead the way, the Wolves settled for a 19-19 tie at the half.

Coupeville was still within 31-29 after three frames but couldn’t quite get there and will look for some sweet revenge when Orcas travels to Cow Town later in the season.

Armstrong paced the Wolves Friday, pumping in 14 points, while Teagan Calkins banked in 11 in support.

Tenley Stuurmans (5), Adeline Maynes (4), Kennedy O’Neill (4), and Ari Cunningham (1) also scored, with Lexis Drake providing a defensive spark in her time on the floor.

The game marked a return to action for Maynes, who sat out two games after being crunched in the head in the season opener, while Stuurmans, a sophomore, cracked the 100-point career scoring club and now sits with 103 points.

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Coupeville’s Edmund Kunz (right) battles with Orcas Island captain Joaquin Shanks Morales for control of the ball. (Julie Wheat photo)

One conference towers above the rest these days.

Over the past five seasons, the Northwest 2B/1B League has collected 13 of the 20 state tournament trophies handed out to boys’ soccer teams, including four titles.

The premier pitch program in Coupeville’s nine-team league has been Orcas Island, which slipped past Spokane’s Saint George’s School 1-0 Saturday at Mount Tahoma High School to capture said crown.

That gives the Vikings back-to-back state 2B/1B titles, and three in five years, with runner-up finishes in 2023 and 2022.

NWL rival Mount Vernon Christian, which upended Orcas to win the District 1/2 title two weeks ago, lost to Saint George’s Friday in a shootout in the semifinals.

The Hurricanes then rebounded to drill Evergreen Lutheran 4-2 Saturday to bring home a 3rd place trophy.

It’s hard to believe now, but no NWL boys’ soccer teams earned a trophy in 2019.

The pandemic wiped out the 2020 state playoffs, but since then the conference has taken home three, three, two, three, and two trophies in the five years since.

Friday Harbor won the state title in 2022 and the only non-NWL team to triumph since Covid has been Upper Columbia Academy, which blanked Orcas 2-0 in 2023.

The Vikings crushed UCA 5-0 in a loser-out first round state game this season.

 

Between 2021-2025 the breakdown for state tourney trophies for NWL teams is:

Orcas Island (5)
Providence Classical Christian (3)
Friday Harbor (2)
Mount Vernon Christian (2)
Lopez Island (1)
Cedar Park Christian-Lynnwood (0)
Coupeville (0)
Grace Academy (0)
La Conner (0)

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Ari Cunningham launches a serve. (Marquette Cunningham photo)

It was a back-and-forth brawl.

Two closely matched varsity volleyball squads went spike for spike Tuesday on Orcas Island, with the host Vikings eking out a five-set thriller against visiting Coupeville.

The Wolves had to rally from a nine-point deficit in the fourth set to even keep things alive, and did, before running out of steam at the end of a 22-25, 25-21, 25-22, 24-26, 15-10 rumble.

“It was a really hard-fought battle,” said CHS coach Scout Smith. “The girls showed lot of grit and determination.

“Lots of props to Orcas Island – they are well-coached and today they got the best of us.”

While the loss drops her young squad to 2-8 in Northwest 2B/1B League play, 4-9-1 overall, Smith prizes the growth she sees, which speaks well for the future as the Wolves rebuild and reload.

“I’m very proud of the fight I saw from our team today,” Smith said.

Coupeville has one regular season match left on the schedule — a non-conference road trip to Sultan next Monday, Nov. 3.

 

Tuesday stats:

Haylee Armstrong — 13 kills, 13 digs, 1 assist, 2 solo blocks
Teagan Calkins — 18 kills, 39 digs, 2 assists, 2 aces
Ari Cunningham — 5 kills, 3 digs, 3 block assists, 2 aces
Lexis Drake — 3 kills, 3 digs, 2 assists, 2 block assists
Adeline Maynes — 11 digs, 4 assists, 4 aces
Dakota Strong — 2 digs
Tenley Stuurmans — 7 kills, 11 digs, 33 assists, 1 block assist, 1 ace
Sydney Van Dyke — 1 dig

Sydney Van Dyke prepares to inflict damage. (Julie Wheat photo)

 

JV:

Time ran out on the Wolves.

With the varsity playing first, and going a full five sets, the JV spikers only had time for one set before having to leg it back to the ferry.

Orcas captured that frame 25-12, but as the “official” recorder of CHS athletics, I’m not counting it as a loss, as we all know the Wolves would have come roaring back to take sets #2 and #3 and net a season sweep against the Vikings.

Don’t like my ruling? Start your own blog, Orcas.

 

Tuesday (limited) stats:

Willow Leedy-Bonifas — 1 kill, 1 dig
Emma Leavitt — 1 assist, 1 ace
Kennedy O’Neill — 1 assist, 1 ace
Chelsi Stevens — 1 kill, 2 digs

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Tamsin Ward (left) and Lillian Ketterling sparked Coupeville to an 8-1 win Tuesday on Orcas. (Jandellyn Ward photo)

The Wolf booters have a great relationship with the back of the net.

Peppering the Orcas Island goalie all afternoon Tuesday, the Coupeville High School girls’ soccer squad thrashed its hosts, capturing a resounding 8-1 road win.

The victory, which gives the Wolves a season sweep of the Vikings, lifts CHS to 3-7-1 on the campaign heading into the regular-season finale.

After sitting 10 days between Tuesday’s tilt and their last game — a hard-fought home tie with big school rival Sultan way back on Oct. 11 — Jasmine Ader’s pitch warriors go back to waiting.

Thanks to a rescheduled game, that finale, a road trip to Bothell to face Providence Classical Christian, is now slated for Oct. 30.

The break between games didn’t seem to slow down the Wolves, who ran their season scoring total to 28 goals.

Freshman Tamsin Ward had the hot foot, sliding four scores into the net to push her total to 14.

That’s the third-best single-season performance by a Wolf girl in the 20-year history of the program, trailing just Kalia Littlejohn (15 in 2017) and Mia Littlejohn (27 in 2016).

Ward passed Avalon Renninger (12) and Ayden Wyman (13) on the career scoring chart as well, and sits #5 all-time, with Lindsey Roberts (17) her next target.

“Where you going?” “To thrash teams and take names!” (Jandellyn Ward photo)

For her part, Ward is most excited about team accomplishment over individual glory.

“I think we played well tonight,” she said. “Our hard work is starting to result in positive outcomes on the field.

“I’m excited to grow with this group of girls.”

Other CHS goals Tuesday came from 8th grade phenom Lyla Grose, who has six on the year, and sophomore Lillian Ketterling, who notched her second and third scores.

As the second-oldest player on the team (behind just senior Frankie Tenore), Ketterling is embracing her role in helping her young squad grow.

“I feel that we’re really starting to game execute the things we practice,” Ketterling said.

“We have one goal, to bring a state championship to Coupeville; I am so excited about our trajectory.”

The Wolves bask in the glow of victory. (Jerry Helm photo)

Now technically, one of Ketterling’s goals could be counted as an “own score” for Orcas, since her shot hit a Viking player, who accidentally knocked it past her own goaltender in the resulting pandemonium.

But then you stop and consider that no, the lethal Wolf sharpshooter is probably just that talented that she can curve a ball off a rival player’s leg, before using Jedi mind tricks to get her rival to do the dirty work for her.

So yep, two-goal night for Ketterling. End of (a very brief) discussion.

Moving on, another one of Coupeville’s eight 8th graders rounded out the offensive explosion, as Hazel Goldman dropped a bomb for her first high school goal.

Seven different Wolves, all underclassmen, have scored this season, with five 8th graders combining to account for 11 of those goals.

The future? Bright.

“Each game we’re putting players on the field in different positions, roles, and responsibilities,” said CHS coach Jasmine Ader.

“These players have been willing to adapt. That shows we’re doing exactly what we’re supposed to be doing, developing players.”

Whether playing games or working hard behind the scenes, the Wolves, rebuilding their program after a two-year shutdown, are on the rise.

“Within the last two weeks we’ve added weightlifting, and plyometric training to improve our speed and agility,” Ader said.

“If you don’t know who they are now, you soon will.”

Andrea Gonzalez (22) is part of a talented group of booters helping revive CHS girls’ soccer. (Julie Wheat photo)

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