Wolf hoops stars (l to r) Ashlie Shank, Maddy Hilkey and Lindsey Roberts kill time before their games Friday. Later, Hilkey would be bit. Not by her teammates. (Amy King photo)
Some days you win, others you just get chomped.
Apparently Forks is not the only vampire-friendly town in the region, as the Coupeville High School JV girls’ basketball squad returned from Silverdale Friday with several new teeth marks to display.
Wolf frosh Maddy Hilkey was bitten (yes, really), swing player Allison Wenzel got a bloody lip a day after her birthday and super-scrappy Ashlie Shank added to her extensive “floor burn and bruise collection.”
Oh, and the Wolves were nipped 31-30 in a game in which, if they had ten more seconds, they probably would have won.
Charging back hard in the second half after a slow start, Coupeville got what should have, could have been a game-winner.
Brittany Powers nailed a three-ball with five ticks on the clock to put the Wolves up by one, only to have the refs swoop in to save the day for Klahowya.
As the Eagles tried to bring the ball up under pressure, Lauren Rose forced the ball-handler to travel.
Except that’s not how the refs chose to see it, instead whistling a foul on Coupeville and sending Klahowya to the line, where they slid two free-throws through the net to regain the lead.
The Wolves turned the ball over on the ensuing play, but quickly fouled, hoping for a final shot.
The ploy worked, for a second, as the free throw slid off the rim, but then it hit the head of a potential rebounder and shot away, allowing the clock to run out on CHS.
“It was wild,” said Wolf coach Amy King. “I told the girls, we beat them by one more than they beat us and we get them one more time (next Saturday).
“Quite the game.”
The Wolves (6-9 overall, 4-2 in league play) found themselves in a very physical game from the start.
“We got hit by all sides the first half,” King said. “They were majorly aggressive, going after every loose ball, steals, if we rebounded they had three players on the ball, they had a cherry picker down the floor the whole game.
“We couldn’t get any offense going and it took us a while to take a deep breath and dig in. Which we did.”
Swing player Kyla Briscoe led the second-half rally with strong play on defense, while Sarah Wright and Skyler Lawrence made Klahowya pay dearly down low.
To a player, the Wolves amped up their own play to meet the challenge.
“Skyler made them pay for ignoring her at the top of the key. Ashlie and Allison were on the floor more times than we could count,” King said.
“Lauren and Maddy got aggressive on not letting them just make the passes that they wanted and Brittany was a mad woman, voicing loudly when she had the ball,” she added. “Sound like a melee? Kinda was.”
Wright paced Coupeville with 12 points and 14 rebounds, while Lawrence (6), Briscoe (4), Shank (3), Powers (3), Wenzel (1) and Rose (1) also scored.
Shank ripped down nine boards while she and Briscoe each had two steals.
Coupeville Sports 