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Posts Tagged ‘rough and tumble’

“It was a very tough game!!”

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , , on January 6, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Maddy Hilkey is not too sure about the quality of the refs in Klahowya. (Amy King photo)

Playing on the road for the second time in less than 24 hours, and with a thin roster to boot, the Coupeville High School JV girls basketball squad struggled Saturday against a rugged Klahowya team.

Despite a strong effort on the boards, the young Wolves fell 33-17, evening their Olympic League mark at 1-1 on the season.

Coupeville’s JV sits at 5-6 overall heading home to play Tuesday against Port Townsend.

Facing off with Klahowya, and playing second after the Wolf varsity won in the opener, Amy King’s squad got out-muscled a bit.

“There was a lot of Eagle contact – they are always super aggressive,” she said. “We pull a rebound down, they have two to three girls mauling whoever has the ball.

“Our girls don’t appreciate that much contact, so…”

The Wolves, who only suited seven with several players missing, got strong games from Maddy Hilkey and Genna Wright.

“Maddy and Genna played the most controlled during the whole game,” King said. “Maddy found herself at the free throw line a lot in the second half because she was getting some good shots off of being fouled.

“Genna was just a tough player who worked hard on both ends of the court.”

Ashlie Shank and Nicole Lester both took rebounds back up strongly, netting buckets on second-chance plays, while Lester also hooked up with point guard Mollie Bailey for the best basket of the night.

Finding herself matched up with a smaller defender, Lester, listening to her coach, stepped in front of the Eagle and converted after getting a quick pass delivered onto her fingertips.

“Mollie and Nicole locked eyes and it was an easy basket,” King said. “Something we did not get too many of during the night.”

Hilkey paced the Wolves with a team-high nine points, and, after one made free throw, one of her teammates tried to get a little extra.

Foreign exchange student Julia García Oñoro, still learning the intricacies of American basketball, snatched the ball away from the Eagles and tried to inbound it.

“We look and Julia had picked up the ball and was trying to throw it in,” King said. “Funnier, the Klahowya team was trying to defend the throw in.

“It was determined that it was actually their ball,” she added. “Then you hear Sarah (Wright’s) voice from the bleachers: ‘She’s from Spain.’ It was pretty funny.”

Even in a loss, King came away happy with her player’s fight. Whether the ball belonged to them or not, they weren’t willing to go down easy.

All seven Wolves who suited up had at least one rebound, with defensive dynamo Tia Wurzrainer snatching six boards and making off with three steals.

“Despite the score, the girls never let down,” King said. “Their effort was there and it was one of the better games, with everyone fighting and playing with energy from start to finish.”

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Do not tempt Julia Myers’ elbows!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on January 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Julia Myers

Do not trifle with Julia Myers. (John Fisken photo)

Julia Myers will take a girl out.

Oh, the Coupeville High School junior may seem like a friendly, outgoing smile machine off the basketball court, but on the hardwood she’s a hard-charging, rebound-grabbing, rip-the-ball-out-of-your-hands-and-knock-your-butt-on-the-floor kind of player.

And that’s a good thing.

While the Wolves may not have been able to derail the best team in the Cascade Conference Friday night, eventually falling 67-33 to visiting King’s, they did manage to shake, rattle and roll the heavily-favored Knights.

Led by Myers, an elbows-swinging wild woman who “had her best game of the season,” in the words of CHS coach David King, Coupeville fought until the bitter end.

Even down by 30, the Wolves came five players strong and forced a shot clock violation with under four minutes to go, getting the night’s biggest ovation.

Now 6-6 overall, 3-4 in league play, Coupeville stayed even with King’s (9-3, 6-0) for much of the first quarter.

Four Wolves scored in the early going, led by Breeanna Messner, who hit a pair of sweet jumpers.

Firing on defense as well, where Monica Vidoni laid down a thunderous block, Coupeville cut the lead to 12-10 when Kacie Kiel drove hard to the hoop, drew two defenders, then banked the ball hard off the backboard while being pummeled.

That was as close as the Wolves would get, however, as King’s recovered to close the quarter on a 7-0 run.

The killer was a bucket-and-free-throw combo at the buzzer that left a Knight shooting her freebie with no time left on the clock — once the CHS band quieted down.

King’s stretched the lead into double digits early in the second quarter and never let Coupeville back in. Using their superior speed, the Knights slashed to the hoop for quick buckets, then started raining down three-point bombs in the second half.

Coupeville’s defense still shone through at times, as Makana Stone and Myers recorded back-to-back blocked shots.

Myers later inadvertently cold-cocked one of King’s better shooters, senior Karly Hibbard, during a scuffle for a loose ball, sending the Knight gunner to the floor, then the bench with an ice pack on her neck.

While the KO was unintentional, it was proof that Myers is fond of channeling her inner Dennis Rodman from time to time, giving the Wolves an aura of grittiness and do-not-mess-with-us attitude.

Amanda Fabrizi, another Wolf not afraid of getting scrappy in the heat of battle, paced Coupeville with 11 points, mixing running hook shots with driving one-handers.

Stone popped for 10, Messner scorched the nets for seven, Kiel hit for four and Myers netted a free throw.

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