Sophomore Natalie Hollrigel was one of many Wolf booters who played with fire and passion Monday in a 7-2 win. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
The goals came early, they came late and they came in bunches.
Raining down shots from every angle Monday, the Coupeville High School girls soccer squad romped to a 7-2 win over visiting Mount Vernon Christian.
It was a game of total domination, as the Wolves battered and abused their non-conference foes every step of the way.
All in all, it was a nice cap to a brutal opening stretch of the schedule, as CHS has essentially played a game every other day so far.
Now 4-2 after winning for the fourth time in its last five games, Coupeville finally gets a breather, as it plays just three times over the next two weeks.
While their legs might be tired, the Wolves have shown a splendid scoring touch, racking up 28 goals in the opening stages of the season.
Junior Kalia Littlejohn has 12 of those, including a hat trick Monday, which runs her career total to 30 goals.
That pulls her within five of the program’s career scoring record of 35, tallied by her older sister, Mia Littlejohn, between 2014-12016.
In the early going Monday, though, it was the Renninger sisters who got things going.
Older sister Sage wasted little time, burying a vicious shot from the right side barely a minute into the game.
A little over two minutes later, it was time for lil’ sis Avalon to upstage her, as the sophomore sharpshooter cranked home a bullet from the left corner that curved over the goalie’s shoulder, then dropped in with a soft splash.
Coupeville kept the ball on Mount Vernon’s side of the field for much of the first half, firing shot after shot at the Hurricane goaltender.
From the four-minute mark to the 27-minute mark, the Wolves fired up nine shots to one from MVC, and yet, in a quirk of fate, the only missile to find pay-dirt was the one the opposing team launched.
Up 2-1 in a game that felt like it should have already been 20-1, CHS finally got that straightened out.
Genna Wright sucked the defense to her, then dropped a seeing-eye pass right in front of Littlejohn, who caught the ball with her right leg, deftly flipped it behind her back to her left leg, then poked it into the back of the net.
Coupeville tacked on a fourth goal eight minutes before the halftime break, when Sage Renninger crushed a corner kick into a thicket of players in front of the net.
With both Wright and Littlejohn up in her face, a panicky MVC defender accidentally deflected the shot into the corner of the net.
It’s the second time this season Renninger has gotten an assist by forcing an own goal by an opposing team.
While offense was the focus most of the day, the Wolf defense did its best to make life super-smooth for goalie Sarah Wright.
Mallory Kortuem made a sensational scramble back to deny a breakaway, using her sprinter speed to catch the play and her nimble toes to steal the ball away.
Her fellow defender, Tia Wurzrainer, stopped another play the old-fashioned way, by roughing up the shooter from behind, sending her sprawling face-first into the turf.
While an overly-protective ref gave the feisty sophomore a yellow card for the play, the Wolf fans jamming the stands were much more appreciative.
The second half was more of the same, with Coupeville bashing away on shot after shot.
Littlejohn added two more goals, both on unique plays, while Genna Wright capped things by looping in her fifth score of the season.
Goals #2 and #3 for Littlejohn were highlight-worthy, for vastly different reasons.
On the first, Kalia swung and, for one of the few times in her career, completely whiffed on a ball.
With the defense on its heels, she paused for a split-second, then promptly blasted the ball through the back of the net, before turning and heading back up-field, shaking her head and laughing.
Littlejohn’s final goal belonged 98.6% to Lindsey Roberts.
The junior with the bionic leg unleashed a 30-yard cannon shot that smacked into the MVC goalie’s arms with a bang, then bounced free.
Following the ball all the way, Littlejohn leaned in and popped the rebound into the back of the net, adding one final bit of frustration to the Hurricane netminder’s day.
On the other side of the field there was a lot more happiness.
After Sarah Wright was spot-on in the first half, she gave way to freshman Mollie Bailey, who made two crowd-pleasing saves to cap the game.
On one, Bailey went airborne to snag a hard shot, getting far more air than expected, while on the other, she timed her jump perfectly, punching the ball up and over the crossbar.
Over on the sideline, both the official goalie guru, Gary Manker, and the unofficial one, former Wolf net-minder Lauren Grove, who worked with her successors before the game, were all smiles.
It was a look shared by head coach Kyle Nelson.
“Our focus and our goal is to keep on improving, take small steps and we will be a heck of a team by the end of the season,” he said. “And we’re already showing a lot of positive steps that way.”
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