Emma Smith threw down big hits from every angle Saturday as Coupeville volleyball pulled off a stunning come-from-behind win at the district tourney. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Jennifer Menges was vibrating in place.
Rocking back and forth on the hard wooden bleachers in the cramped Lynden Christian Middle School gym Saturday, her legs bouncing as she bit her bottom lip, arms tensing and un-tensing, she had just about reached her limit.
“I can’t freakin’ take this!!!!” she half-whispered.
Then, a moment later, as her daughter Ashley and her Coupeville High School volleyball teammates celebrated an improbable, incredible miracle win to keep their season alive, Jennifer’s smile exploded.
“Who am I kidding? I LOVE THIS!!!!!!” she giggled as Wolf moms pummeled each other, hugging away the stress and embracing the joy.
Down on the court, their daughters, having been two points from elimination only to rally like stone-cold killers, did the same.
Having pulled off a five-set revenge win against league rival Cedar Park Christian, the Wolves earned a split on day one of the two-day district tourney, and guaranteed themselves at least one more postseason match.
Coupeville, 11-4 after a four-set loss to Meridian, followed by their wild ride to victory against CPC, plays Nooksack Valley (7-9) in a 5 PM loser-out game Tuesday, Oct. 30 in Lynden.
Win, and the Wolves clinch a trip to bi-districts Nov. 3, while first returning to the court at 6:30 Tuesday to face the winner of South Whidbey (10-7) and Meridian (5-12) in a match to decide the #3 and #4 seeds from District 1.
Lynden Christian (14-2) and King’s (15-1), who have already clinched bi-district slots after winning both of their matches Saturday, play for the district title and the #1 and #2 seeds.
Tough loss to Meridian:
The Trojans entered the tourney with a losing record, but that’s based more on a small school playing in a cutthroat 1A/2A/3A league, than on their talent level.
Taking advantage of Coupeville errors, Meridian rolled to a 25-16, 23-25, 25-18, 25-23 win, putting the Wolves on the cusp of elimination.
For a brief second CHS looked locked in, jumping out to a quick 2-0 lead in the opening set thanks to two strong serves from Scout Smith and a hammered spike off the pain-inducing fingers of big hitter Emma Smith.
Then things lurched the other way, and didn’t get corrected for quite a bit.
Once the Trojans snatched their first lead, they relentlessly pecked away, getting two or three points to every one Coupeville put on the board.
Though, even then, the Wolves were often fighting two foes, as the scoreboard operator, who apparently couldn’t fathom that CHS was playing as the home team in both matches, spent much of the day awarding points to the wrong team.
With a strong Coupeville cheering section having made the trip to the hinterlands, the hootin’ and hollerin’ hit appropriately rowdy levels as the validity of the scoreboard was frequently, and loudly, called into question.
At one point, the head judge, up on her perch at the net, whipped around, cast a frosty look at the Cow Town brigade and snapped, “The score is correct!”
It was, once again, not.
While not being willing to offer an apology upon realizing she was wrong, the judge did refrain from speaking to, or even looking at, Wolf fans the rest of the match.
She did hunch her shoulders every time cries about the scoreboard came up after that, though, so we had that going for us, which was nice.
Even when the points were awarded correctly, however, the Wolf spikers couldn’t string enough of them together in a row to blunt Meridian’s charge.
Hannah Davidson, Chelsea Prescott, Scout Smith, Ashley Menges and Emma Smith all figured in blocks at the net, while Davidson nailed a gorgeous running tip for a winner, but it was too little to stem the tide.
Things changed for the better in the second set, but it took a moment.
Down 4-0 in the blink of an eye, CHS got on the scoreboard (well, not at first…) when Emma Smith floated through the air like a butterfly, then stung like a bee, dropping a dagger into an empty hole in the defense.
A tip winner from Maya Toomey-Stout forced the first of nine ties in the second frame, with the stalemates running from 6-6 to as late as 23-23.
Coupeville actually trailed as late as 20-18, before a mammoth spike from Emma Smith tore a gaping hole in Meridian’s willpower and kicked off a set-closing 7-3 run for the Wolves.
The senior captain launched missiles from all directions while playing in front of a large group of family, before Davidson punctuated things with a rolling spike to seal the set win.
With the match knotted at a set apiece, the Wolves grabbed the early lead in the third frame, but couldn’t hold on to it.
Prescott ripped off a Trojan arm with a slice ‘n dice spike, Menges went all “Smashley” on her foes and CHS pulled off an amazing save on a ball stuck in the net, but it wan’t quite enough. Once Meridian snatched the lead at 11-10, it closed the set convincingly.
The fourth set was a killer, in more ways than one.
After trailing almost the entire way, from 1-0 all the way to 19-12, Coupeville dug deep and found some magic.
With Prescott rifling serves and Emma Smith bashing the snot out of the ball, the Wolves went on an unexpected 7-0 tear to force a tie at 19 apiece.
Then CHS promptly fell back apart, giving up a 5-1 run to stake Meridian to a 24-20 lead.
And yet, the Wolves, in full Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde mode, almost pulled off another stunner, holding off three match points, thanks to a Toomey-Stout tip and back-to-back blazing serves o’ death by Menges.
In a match suddenly popping with fury and fire, the final point was less than anticlimactic, as the head judge, perhaps still frosty, dinged Coupeville on a questionable carry call.
Wild win against Cedar Park:
During the rest period between matches, the Wolves looked tired, hot, disappointed and melancholy, but not — and this is the biggie — defeated.
Facing a foe with which they had split two regular-season matches, Coupeville saved its best for last, somehow pulling out a 25-27, 25-13, 21-25, 25-23, 15-8 victory to inject new life into its season.
The stretch of play which will live large in memory came when the Wolves were at their lowest.
Trailing two sets to one, and down 23-18 in the fourth after a 6-1 Cedar Park run had erased a 17-17 tie and sent the two Eagles fans in attendance into hysterics, Coupeville needed a miracle.
Enter the duo of Davidson and Scout Smith.
Rising as one, even if the former is more than a few inches taller than the latter, the two Wolves caught a would-be CPC winner and rejected it right back in the face of the hitter.
That set off a set-closing 7-0 run, with Davidson scoring the final six points with precision serves and some ball-crunching help from Prescott, flying through the air and playing out of her mind.
With each Wolf point, the impossible became a bit more probable, the already vocal Coupeville fans made the small gym rock, and the Eagle spikers visibly pulled back within themselves.
Suddenly, Cedar Park wasn’t playing to win, but merely to survive, and the Wolves pounced on their prey, tearing them apart in huge, snapping bites.
Once it had the fourth set in hand, CHS used its superior power to brutalize the Eagles in the fifth frame.
Emma Smith lashed a winner, Prescott smoked a put-away, and Toomey-Stout ascended to a new dimension of sight and sound, in which each of her winners erupted in full technicolor and surround sound.
The moment when you knew the match was over, truly over, came not on the final point. Instead it came earlier, when Toomey-Stout bashed a ball off a rival player’s surprised face.
The Eagle staggered a few steps and remained on her feet, but her heart and soul departed her body at that precise moment, perhaps never to return.
Coupeville’s comeback, and the big bang unleashed by “The Gazelle,” capped a rubber match in which both teams came hard on every play, and unsung warriors like libero Emma Mathusek stood tall.
Or actually, dove, as Mathusek dug ball after ball off the wood floor, keeping alive rallies in which the teams were separated by just a small error here, a smaller miscue there.
The opening set featured 11 ties, with the first one not coming until 10-10, as the Wolves had to scrape to get back in the match.
Surprisingly, even though it felt like it, a check of the stats shows Coupeville never actually led in the opening frame. And, while it fought off two set points, there was no such luck when facing a third one.
The second set was a complete reversal, with Scout Smith compiling two strong runs at the service stripe, while Emma Smith smashed everything within a one-mile radius of her rapidly-descending fist.
Bolting out to a 6-1 lead, the Wolves stretched it out to 23-11 and cruised in with the win to knot the match at a set apiece.
Cedar Park snatched back the momentum, however, leading almost start to finish in the third set, despite stellar play at the net from Davidson.
All of which set up the fourth-set miracle, as Coupeville, behind big kills from Emma Smith, Prescott and Toomey-Stout and a sweet mini hook shot by Scout Smith, refused to give up.
With cameos from swing players Zoe Trujillo and Lucy Sandahl, who popped in to pound a few serves, and vocal bench support from Willow Vick, Maddie Vondrak and Raven Vick, the Wolves lived and died as a tightly-knit unit.
One team, one dream.
That they ultimately lived, thrived and get to play on, is just the cherry on top of the sundae.
The district bracket:
http://www.nscathletics.com/tournament.php?tournament_id=2745&sport=10
The bi-district bracket:
http://www.nscathletics.com/tournament.php?tournament_id=2737&sport=10
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