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Posts Tagged ‘SWHS Falcons’

Wolves claim Island baseball supremacy!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , on March 17, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Gavin Knoblich was part of a 13-hit, 10-run explosion Saturday, as Coupeville thumped Island rival South Whidbey. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

South Whidbey had no answers for Hunter Smith.

The Coupeville High School senior made his season pitching debut Saturday and came within one questionable call of throwing a no-hitter as the Wolves scorched host South Whidbey 10-0.

The non-conference victory, coming less than 24 hours after a 10-inning thriller with Sequim, lifts CHS to 2-1 on the season.

Everything was clicking in the sun for the Wolves, from booming bats and quick feet to superb calls from coach Chris Smith.

His best call? Handing the ball to his middle child.

Hunter Smith whiffed 13 Falcons, getting at least one in every inning, and faced just three batters over the minimum in seven pristine innings.

Two of those South Whidbey base-runners made it to the bag thanks to Wolf errors, while the only hit was a disputed one-out base-knock in the bottom of the sixth inning.

While Coupeville’s ace was dealing, the Wolf bats were booming, as they picked apart three Falcon hurlers for 13 hits.

“Solid performance all around,” said Chris Smith. “Hunter was outstanding on the mound.

“We stayed aggressive at the plate,” he added. “Barely missed the opportunity to break the game wide open with a few great plays from the South Whidbey  center-fielder with two outs.”

Coupeville jumped on the very first pitch of the day, with Matt Hilborn peppering a single on his first swing to kick-start things.

While Joey Lippo was robbed by a nice snag on a line drive, Dane Lucero’s RBI double and Kyle Rockwell’s RBI single, packaged around a walk from Jake Hoagland, put the Wolves up 2-0 after a half inning.

CHS added another run in the second thanks to two Falcon errors and another single from Hilborn, but what could have been a much-bigger inning came to a premature close when Hoagland’s long fly to center was run down.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter much, as the Wolves continued to hammer away at South Whidbey, piling on three runs in the fourth, one more in the sixth and three in the top of the seventh.

Both the sixth and seven innings started with Coupeville in a two-outs, no-one-on-base hole, and yet the Wolves responded each time by scraping together rallies with their backs to the wall.

Nine of Coupeville’s 10 runs were the direct result of a hit, sac fly or fielder’s choice, with only one run being plated on a Falcon error.

Lucero and Hilborn paced the Wolf offense with three hits apiece, with Lucero popping a double for the day’s only extra-base hit.

Hunter Smith and Lippo each rapped out two singles, while Rockwell, Gavin Knoblich and Nick Etzell collected one apiece.

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Another match, another lesson!!

Posted in Girls Tennis, tagged , , , , on March 16, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Tia Wurzrainer is teaming with fellow Wolf sophomore Avalon Renninger to form a potent doubles duo. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Tennis is a tricky game.

They record the team score, yet individual development is the primary objective.

Coupeville High School girls tennis coach Ken Stange has been hanging around the courts for most of his life, and has developed a nice Zen attitude about the whole thing.

So, while his Wolf squad fell to 0-3 on the season after taking a 4-1 non-conference loss at South Whidbey Friday, he can be at peace, seeing each of his netters develop their own story arc at their own pace.

Coupeville will have a tough time putting together a string of team wins, with seven matches against 2A schools, several others against tough 1A rivals like South Whidbey, and a Wolf lineup still very much in flux.

Friday’s match, while it ended in a team loss, had its positives, though, especially in doubles.

Stange’s top duo, seniors Payton Aparicio and Sage Renninger, bounced back after a narrow loss to a Sequim tandem, pulling out an epic three-set win in Langley.

“Sage and Payton really figured it out today,” Stange said. “South Whidbey had a tough duo.

“It took a while for them to find the groove, but once they did, it was lights out for SW.”

Coupeville’s #2 duo, sophomores Avalon Renninger and Tia Wurzrainer, have only played three matches together, but their coach already sees a bright future for his young netters.

“Avalon and Tia continue to grow,” Stange said. “They may have lost, but I see them evolving into one entity.

“They remind me of my 1’s, in a way.”

The final varsity doubles match presented Coupeville’s coach with a bit of a quandry.

While he was fully in support of his own players — seniors Kameryn St Onge and Maggie Crimmins — one of the Falcon rivals happened to be Oliana Stange.

The SWHS sophomore was making her varsity debut, and she and her partner pulled out a win as Ken Stange carefully juggled two roles, that of an aggressive coach and a justifiably-beaming father.

“Between sets, I told Kam and Maggie to hit it to the less-experienced player. That was O,” chess-master Ken Stange admitted with a small smile. “I told my girls that she’d either wilt or rise up.

“O stepped up. I was quite proud.”

After another clash with a 2A school, this time Kingston, next Tuesday, Mar. 20, Coupeville begins its run at a fourth-straight Olympic League crown when it hosts Klahowya Thursday, Mar. 22

Complete Friday results:

Varsity:

1st Singles — Claire Mietus lost to Farriss Jokinen 6-2, 6-1

2nd Singles — Genna Wright lost to Ashley Ricketts 6-0, 6-0

1st Doubles — Payton Aparicio/Sage Renninger beat Mary Zisette/Ainsley Nelson 4-6, 6-1, 6-0

2nd Doubles — Avalon Renninger/Tia Wurzrainer lost to Robynn Maciel/Alison Papritz 6-4, 6-2

3rd Doubles — Kameryn St Onge/Maggie Crimmins lost to Ally Lynch/Oliana Stange 6-2, 6-2

JV:

4th Doubles — Jillian Mayne/Zara Bradley lost to Annika/Chloe 6-1

5th Doubles — Heather Nastali/Nanci Melendrez beat Capri/Amara 6-1

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Falcon’s finest set for big stage!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , on March 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   South Whidbey’s Lewis Pope will play in an all-state, all-star basketball game Mar. 17. (Photo courtesy Teresa Pope)

Whidbey is going to the big dance.

The Washington Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association is reaching out to the hinterlands, inviting South Whidbey senior Lewis Pope to next weekend’s All-State All-Star games.

The invitation became Twitter-official late Friday afternoon, when WIBCA released rosters for all six teams.

The event, set for Saturday, Mar. 17 at Curtis High School, down in University Place, pits 10-man teams made up of seniors against each other in three games.

Kicking things off at 2 PM will be 1B vs. 2B, with 1A vs. 2A at 4 PM, and 3A vs. 4A wrapping things up at 6 PM.

Pope, who was co-MVP in the Cascade Conference this season, will be on a 1A team which includes Nooksack Valley’s backboard-busting Casey Bauman and George De Jong of state champ Lynden Christian.

The son of Teresa and Henry Pope, Lewis averaged 23.8 points a game during his senior season, and has signed to play college ball for Central Washington University.

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Saved the best for last!!

Posted in Girls Basketball, tagged , , , , on December 10, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Having battled back from injury, Maddy Hilkey filled up the stat sheet Saturday as the Wolf JV stormed to another win. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

And then, at the very end, a ray of sunshine.

On a Saturday night when Coupeville High School basketball in general absorbed a beating, one team refused to go along with the story line.

The Wolf JV girls squad, Amy King’s band of scrappers and ball-hawks, is the lone CHS hoops unit to currently be posting a winning record.

So, it should come as little surprise that, even playing with virtually no bench, they still stormed past host South Whidbey 28-21 to run their record to 3-2.

“I guess we were the game of the night,” said King with a quietly satisfied smile.

Coupeville won despite playing with just over half its roster (six of 11 girls) in uniform.

“100% praise to our JV team – the warriors!,” said CHS varsity coach David King. “They communicated, moved as one on defense and ran their plays very well.

“My hope is varsity watched the effort and will learn from the JV team after tonight.”

With just one player sitting next to her on the bench at any given time, Amy King rubbed her hands together, knew she had the Falcons where she wanted them, and promptly unleashed defensive Hell.

The Wolves forced a shot-clock violation on South Whidbey’s first possession, and the tone was set.

“I was very impressed with our defense,” Amy King said. “The girls really were working as one unit – talking and making their own adjustments together during the game.

“They did this very effectively.”

While the Wolves surged out to a 16-10 lead heading into halftime, it was how her players reacted in the locker room which impressed their coach the most.

“I talked about what I was seeing and what we needed to do, but I also had the players telling me what they were seeing and talking about which plays were working and which were not,” Amy King said. “They were asking if we could make a change here or do something differently there.

“Excitement was in the air and they were owning their game,” she added. “As a coach, I was impressed with their input and conversation as a team.”

Playing with fire on defense, the Wolves got big performances from all six players in uniform.

Maddy Hilkey “was very impressive with playing up top on our defense, getting steals,” while Mollie Bailey was an equal opportunity thief.

When South Whidbey did get to the basket, Kylie Chernikoff “played fantastic defense, ripping rebounds all night and putting shots back up when she could.”

Toss in Avalon Renninger terrorizing everyone foolish enough to get in her way, and a fired-up Julia García Oñoro hitting the boards, and there were few options for the Falcons.

Chelsea Prescott, even after hitting the floor hard enough to be checked for a concussion, continued to be a stellar two-way star. She singed the nets for a game-high 16 points, while yanking down eight rebounds.

With all of her players firing as one, King’s squad controlled the pace of the game, repeatedly broke South Whidbey’s press and was relentless in pursuit of victory.

Renninger collected five points, eight boards and three steals, while Bailey had three points, six rebounds, three steals and two assists.

Chernikoff (nine rebounds, two assists) and Hilkey (four steals, two assists) rounded out the scoring with a bucket apiece.

As she basked in the win, Amy King praised her iron women for a job well done.

“This group played like a team,” she said. “They pushed through their tired legs. They ran their plays, moved and talked on defense and did it all together.

“I could not have asked for a better way to end the day.”

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“We played tough!!”

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , on December 9, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Jake Pease (left), seen here in an earlier game, was a beast on the boards Saturday night. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Mason Grove has a love affair with the bottom of the net.

Continuing his hot early-season shooting, the Coupeville High School sophomore went for 19 points, including five three-balls, Saturday in a 52-34 loss at South Whidbey.

That gives him 22 treys through the first four games of the season for a Wolf JV squad which sits at 1-3.

Coupeville’s young guns came out strongly against the host Falcons, jumping to a 13-9 lead after one quarter of play.

The Wolves couldn’t keep it up, however, as South Whidbey used a 32-13 surge over the middle two quarters to take control of the game.

“We played tough and I am very proud of the guys and how we played,” said Coupeville JV coach Chris Smith. “We played hard all game and I just couldn’t outwit some of the adjustments they made to slow down our offense.”

While Grove has been the go-to man for the Wolves, Smith has been working on mixing things up, combining strong inside play with the rainbows from behind the arc.

“I like how we attempted to get our big guys involved in the offense,” he said. “Jake (Pease) and Jean (Lund-Olsen) were rebounding machines on both ends of the court.”

Lund-Olsen dropped in six points to back Grove, while Sage Downes (3), Pease (3), Ulrik Wells (2) and David Prescott (1) also etched their names in the book.

Alex Jimenez and Daniel Olson also saw floor time for the Wolves.

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