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Posts Tagged ‘SWHS Falcons’

Wolf harriers letter up!!

Posted in Cross Country, tagged , , , , , on December 4, 2016| Leave a Comment »

duo

   Coupeville cross country duo Danny Conlisk (left) and Henry Wynn hang out before a meet. (John Fisken photo)

Danny

   Conlisk gets congratulations from the South Whidbey coaches. (Dawnelle Conlisk photo)

They reached the end of the trail, for now.

Danny Conlisk and Henry Wynn received their cross country letters Sunday, becoming the first Coupeville High School athletes to be honored in the sport in six seasons.

CHS doesn’t have an active harrier program of its own, so the Wolf duo traveled and trained with South Whidbey this year.

Wynn, a junior, ran in six meets, setting his PR in the 5,000 meters (18:47.5) at the Olympic League Championships.

Conlisk battled through leg injuries which ended his season early, but competed in four meets before going down.

He set a PR of 18:36 at the Nike Twilight XC Invitational.

While the Wolf duo had to put out extra time and effort to compete without a school team to call their own, they and their parents felt it was more than worth it.

“Loved this journey with South Whidbey,” said Dawnelle Conlisk. “It truly was amazing.”

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Falcons, time to fly home!!

Posted in 1A Olympic League, tagged , , , , on September 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Come on, South Whidbey. Give Coupeville a chance to beat you a lot more. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

   Come on, South Whidbey. Give Coupeville a chance to thrash you on a far more regular basis. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

It’s time, South Whidbey, it’s time.

You may not want to hear this, but you need to think long and hard about leaving the 1A/2A Cascade Conference and joining Coupeville in the 1A Olympic League.

I know you didn’t ask for my opinion, but that has hardly ever stopped me from spouting off.

And I’m offering this advice as a friend, as someone who wants to see Falcon Nation have a fighting chance.

I want you to have plenty of opportunities to serenade fallen foes with “Drive home safely!!”

Now, of course, I don’t want to hear that tune when Coupeville is the opponent. I’m not saying that.

But I want to see South Whidbey have a fighting chance at all other moments.

A chance which would increase immeasurably if the Falcons left behind a broken league, much as the Wolves did in 2014.

This is not just about football, or your recent forfeit to Archbishop Thomas Murphy, though that certainly got me to thinking.

Playing a team whose offensive line could hold its own with a lot of college teams, at a time when you can field less than 20 players, makes no sense.

As much as the Falcon players probably hated the decision — players want to play, always — I think SWHS administrators made the right choice.

Same thing with Sultan, who at 4-0, are also forfeiting to an ATM squad which has outscored foes 170-0 (not a misprint).

I would be shocked if Granite Falls also doesn’t step aside, and you know things are way too one-sided when King’s coach even publicly admitted his team took a vote on forfeiting.

The Cascade Conference, with its crazy-quilt mix of private schools (who can offer scholarships and operate under different rules) and bigger 2A schools (Cedarcrest and, before they fled the league this year, Lakewood) is a staggering Frankenstein monster.

It’s falling apart before our eyes, and my advice to South Whidbey (again, unasked for) is to get out while the getting is good.

I know it can’t happen this school year, but the Falcons should aim to jump leagues in time to start the 2017-2018 school year in a new environment.

Follow Coupeville’s example and petition to leave District 1 and trek over to District 3.

Come make your case to the Olympic League AD’s, who would likely say yes to bumping the league to five schools.

Coupeville, Klahowya, Port Townsend and Chimacum have little to lose in welcoming refugee Falcons, and much to gain, as adding schools helps the Olympic League in increasing playoff allocations.

But, what does South Whidbey have to get out of such a move. Lots.

First, you reinstate your greatest rivalry in a meaningful manner.

Coupeville vs. South Whidbey. Cow Town vs. Hippie Land. Wolves vs. Falcons.

Nothing is sweeter for either side than beating the burg which sits 25 miles down the Island.

Always has been that way, always will be, and having the games be league affairs just ramps that back up to 100.

Financially, it’s a win-win, as the revenue sports (football, basketball, volleyball) will undoubtedly bring in bigger gates for those clashes.

What do you want? A handful of paying customers traveling here from the wilds of Sultan for a Wednesday game or a steady stream of cars surging up (or down) the Island?

Heck, you’ll get more fans from Port Townsend and Chimacum (both schools whose fans travel well and are far closer) than you will from Granite Falls or Cedar Park Christian.

So, we have rivalry and money, and to that we add a leveled playing field and increased chance at winning titles.

Join the Olympic League and you’ll be the second-biggest school (after Klahowya) in terms of student body size. That’s a huge boon.

And, by removing ATM and King’s, you instantly put yourself back in the title picture in every sport.

Winning titles is huge.

Having a realistic shot, where every day every one of your programs feels genuinely competitive, is even bigger.

In the Cascade Conference, Coupeville found itself facing schools with 400 more students and college programs masquerading as private high schools.

In the Olympic League, facing public schools much closer in size, the Wolves have won six titles in two years, stretched across four sports. And they have been competitive in EVERY sport they play.

And another note — the Cascade Conference, for all its size, doesn’t do much with tennis, which forces South Whidbey to play in a random league comprised of private school powers for one sport.

Join the Olympic League, and the Falcons go back to having their sports under the same umbrella, with Coupeville, Klahowya, Chimacum and all the 2A Olympic League schools ready to cross rackets with the well-respected Falcon netters.

But, you say, there has to be some reason to stay in the league you’re currently in. Right?

You got me there.

I’ve heard a mild complaint about the Port Townsend ferry and how that might affect travel, especially with 7 PM kickoff times for football games.

To which I say, big whoopee.

The Olympic League already deals with that by being flexible on some of its start times.

Nowhere is it written in stone that football games have to kickoff at 7.

Which is why, when Coupeville goes down, catches the Clinton ferry and travels to Silverdale to play Klahowya (comparable to South Whidbey hopping over to PT or Chimacum), the kickoff time is 5 or 5:30.

With some other sports, certain match-ups of schools have varsity play first, so that, if a team has to ankle for the ferry, you leave in the middle of the JV game.

Small ways to work around the fact we all LIVE ON AN ISLAND in the first place.

Which leaves one thing — it’s easy to stay.

Except, the league is crumbling.

Lakewood left. ATM is being shoved towards the door, as sentiment for private schools to play in their own leagues builds.

There is no better time to get out, Falcons.

Renew your greatest rivalry. Give your struggling programs a fighting chance, an opportunity to rebuild, and give your elite programs room to soar again.

Make the right choice, South Whidbey. Leave a bad relationship which no longer works and come back home.

Coupeville is here waiting for you, ready to try and kick your fanny certainly, but in the way a brother or sister would.

We should be together, Wolves and Falcons, making life miserable for Klahowya. It’s our destiny.

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Who? Louuuuuu!!

Posted in Girls Soccer, tagged , , , , , , on September 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Lindsey Roberts scored a goal and assisted on another in Thursday night's soccer opener. (John Fisken photo)

   Lindsey Roberts scored a goal and assisted on another in Thursday night’s soccer opener. (John Fisken photo)

It was a tale of two halves, at least scoring wise.

Sparked by the booming leg of sophomore defender Lindsey Roberts, the Coupeville High School girls’ soccer team jumped to a commanding lead Thursday against arch-rival South Whidbey.

But the pesky Falcons hung tough, scored two late goals (one aided by a questionable ref call) and somehow managed to force a 2-2 tie in the regular season opener.

With the game being a non-conference affair, the teams didn’t take their battle to overtime, instead accepting a draw.

Up until South Whidbey slipped in the tying goal with a little under five minutes left on the clock, the game seemed fairly lopsided in favor of the host Wolves.

Coupeville out-shot their visitors by a ton, but the scoring touch it showed in the first half slipped away a bit after the halftime break.

The Wolves continued to rain down shots, and had a golden opportunity to reclaim the lead, and probably a win, in the final seconds of injury time.

With the clock frozen and the game in the hands of the ref and his own personal watch, Lauren Bayne picked up a ball deep in Falcon territory and ripped a screaming shot.

Unfortunately, it was a little too hot, caught an updraft and flew through the football uprights for what would have been a beautiful field goal, letting South Whidbey off the hook.

The Falcons tied the game off of a free kick with 4:42 left in the game.

Or, actually, two free kicks.

The first one sailed wide left of the goal, but the ref called the ball back and allowed South Whidbey to set back up and try again.

No one was quite sure why, but the ultimate consensus was it had something to do with whether a whistle was blown, or not blown, or maybe the ref was just in a really forgiving mood.

Whatever the rationale, the Falcons took advantage and banged home the free kick, sending it into the upper left corner of the net, just a fraction too high for Wolf goalie Lauren Grove to snag.

Grove was solid all game, making several key saves, including one in which she speared the ball while leaping to touch the top of the net.

And, early on, the Wolves repaid her, hitting the back of the net twice in the first half.

Roberts, who has replaced the graduated Jenn Spark as having the most fearsome leg on the CHS roster, notched the year’s first goal 10 minutes in when she lashed a free kick from the far left side of the field.

Her shot curved nicely and hit pay dirt with the sound of a gun going off.

Then, at the 28 minute mark of the first half, Roberts once again earned screams of “Louuuuuuu” from her faithful fans when she whipped a shot into the middle, setting up Mia Littlejohn for a score.

The pass was a perfect set-up and the finish even better, as the junior caught the ball on her toe and perfectly angled the ball past the flailing goalie.

While the Wolves ultimately didn’t hold on to the lead, CHS coach Troy Cowan came away pleased with a lot of what he saw develop on the pitch.

“Overall, I was really happy,” he said. “For a first match, with several freshmen playing in key spots, I thought we played well.

“We’ll go back and make some adjustments and work on spacing in practice, but we out-shot them, by a lot, and we came away healthy, which you always like to see after the first match.”

Cowan hailed Roberts for her two-way play (she continually cleared the ball with passion in the backfield and hustled back to save Grove late in the game with a key deflection when the goalie got trapped outside the box).

He also lauded his freshmen.

All five ninth graders on the roster — Mallory Kortuem, Tia Wurzrainer, Avalon Renninger, Megan Thorn and Anna Dion — saw crucial field time.

“Mallory and Tia are new defenders and they started in their first match in a new system and really handled themselves well,” Cowan said. “That was very nice to see.”

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The Bucket is back!!

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , , on September 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Making his first varsity start Saturday, James Vidoni delivered two huge sacks for a fired-up Wolf defense. (John Fisken photos)

   Making his first varsity start Saturday, James Vidoni delivered two huge sacks for a fired-up Wolf defense. (John Fisken photos)

Senior captains

   Senior captains Uriel Liquidano (63), Jacob Martin (32) and Clay Reilly (2) celebrate bringing The Bucket back to Coupeville.

The even-year magic continues.

Kicking off Jon Atkins first season as head coach in style, the Coupeville High School football team crushed visiting South Whidbey 41-10 Saturday night, claiming The Bucket for the third time in five years.

The opening night non-conference win means the Wolves have already matched last season’s victory total and gives them Island bragging rights for a year.

After winning the showdown with their closest rivals in 2012 and 2014, 2016 offered Coupeville another taste of gridiron magic.

Only this time, it was a total rout.

Using a big-play offense and a bruising defense, the Wolves put the game away early, then emphatically stepped on the Falcons late in the game.

Up 20-0 after one quarter, Coupeville stretched the lead to 34-0 late in the third quarter, and they did it by controlling both sides of the line.

With a vengeance.

Letting their pads do the talking, CHS ripped open huge holes, then unleashed their weapons in all directions.

Setting the tone early was senior running back Jacob Martin, the team’s soft-spoken, rock-solid leader.

For three years he has sacrificed, blocking for others, doing the dirty work.

Saturday night it was his turn, and he answered the bell, big-time.

Taking a hand-off from quarterback Hunter Downes early in the first quarter, Martin exploded through an opening, shook off a would-be tackler and rumbled 39 yards for the first score of the season.

Leaving a trail of Falcons in his dust, the only thing which could have possibly caught up with him was the shouts of one of his former coaches, Charles Clark.

“I see you #32! I see you!!,” the well-liked gridiron guru exclaimed as he pumped both fists in the air from the top row of the bleachers.

Martin wasn’t done, either, later romping to the end zone on a 66-yard second quarter touchdown run in which he ping-ponged his way through the Falcons, then hit another gear and was gone, baby, gone.

In between his scoring strikes, Martin’s QB had his way with the Falcons, as well.

Returning to the field after missing much of his sophomore year with an injury, Downes scored on a one-yard keeper, following right behind Julian Welling’s crushing block, then spun an 18-yard TD pass to birthday boy Hunter Smith.

Up 27-0 coming out of the half, Coupeville offensive coordinator Brad Sherman, returning to coach at the school where he owns the passing records, set up Downes for the kind of play he once pulled off.

Double-pumping a Falcon rusher into the parking lot, Downes fired a BB that dropped right on to the fingertips of a sprinting Smith. 54 yards later the junior receiver was dropping the ball into the referee’s hands after scoring yet another touchdown.

South Whidbey, which hurt itself with a number of penalties, finally got on the board late in the third, but only when Coupeville committed a rare miscue.

A snap on a punt went a good ten feet over Clay Reilly’s head and sailed through the end zone for a safety, netting the Falcons two points and one of their few happy moments of the night.

South Whidbey notched its only touchdown early in the fourth, on a four-yard scramble by young QB Wesly Crain, then tacked on a two-point conversion.

The solace was brief, however, as on the ensuing kick-off, Coupeville opened up a final can of whup-ass.

Smith, who also picked off two passes on his cake day, punctuated things with his third touchdown of the night.

Taking the kick, he drifted slowly for a moment, waited for his blocks to develop, then hit warp speed and pierced a hole on the left side.

One moment he was perfectly still, the next he was but a blur, covering 70+ yards as the Falcons could do little but half-heartedly wave at him as he flew by.

While the frequent scoring was a genuine highlight, Coupeville was just as imposing on defense, with a number of players stepping up to have huge games for defensive coordinator Ryan King.

Senior Uriel Liquidano was a beast unleashed, spending most of his night gently cradling frightened Falcons as he slammed them to the turf after shedding would-be blockers.

Welling spiked a pass into the bleachers to force a turnover, Martin roared up the gut to destroy the suddenly-exposed QB for a sack that netted a loss of ten yards, and James Vidoni left some dents in some Falcon face masks.

The junior defensive end, making his first varsity start, unloaded on South Whidbey, delivering two crushing sacks that brought the Wolf faithful to their feet.

CHS frosh Sean Toomey-Stout, who at 5-foot-7 and 140 pounds gives up five inches and 90 pounds to Vidoni, was a revelation on special teams, blowing up return men like he had been shot out of a cannon.

All in all it was a game Coupeville’s new head coach will treasure.

“Our line played really, really well tonight,” Atkins said. “They sustained their blocks and made big holes for our guys.

“We wanted this to be the start of something big, something that will last a long time. When they look back 10 years from now, we want them to remember a night like tonight.

“Now we just need to keep moving forward.”

As the clock ticked down, Martin sought out his fellow senior captains, Reilly and Liquidano, and the four-year veterans embraced as a trio off to the side.

For a moment, it was just the three of them, and then they pulled Downes and Smith and others into their circle and the celebration really took off.

It may not stop for a very long time.

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Countdown to kickoff!!

Posted in Football, tagged , , , , , on September 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Hunter

   Wolf QB Hunter Downes works on his timing in practice, as CHS Offensive Coordinator Brad Sherman observes. (John Fisken photo)

stands

   The temporary home stands for 2016. Maybe think about bringing a lawn chair. (Scott Losey photo)

Let the pads do the talking.

All the hype, all the side chatter, fades away Saturday night when Coupeville and South Whidbey step on the field to kick off the 2016 high school football season.

It’s opening night, it’s the ultimate Island rivalry game and it’s Cow Town vs. Hippieville, with a trophy, bragging rights and a flawless 1-0 record at stake.

Everything you need to know:

WHEN:

Sat., Sept. 3 at Mickey Clark Field in Coupeville (7 PM kickoff).

AT STAKE:

The winner takes possession of The Bucket for a year.

The trophy, which features a Wolf logo and colors on one side and a Falcon on the other, came into being in 2008 and was the brainchild of CHS Athletic Director Willie Smith, who explains its origins:

Ha ha … well, during a volleyball game at home against SW, one of our senior boys didn’t appreciate the cheering going on by the SW crowd.

So, this young man decided, erroneously and very immaturely, to take matters into his own hands.

He procured a licorice bucket, filled it with water, and proceeded to dump it on the SW crowd, who then chased him out of the gym and very nearly got into a brawl.

Said CHS student was suspended and it almost got really ugly between the two schools.

So, John Patton (former SW AD) and myself decided to turn this negative event into a positive and came up with the idea to make the football game the “Bucket Game” and whomever won that game would keep the bucket for the year.

Thus, the annual Bucket Game began.

The two schools have split the past four years, with Tony Maggio coaching Coupeville to wins in 2012 (18-13 in Langley) and 2014 (35-28 at home.)

South Whidbey scored three fourth-quarter TD’s last year to win 27-14 on its home turf in coach Michael Coe’s first game.

First-year Coupeville coach Jon Atkins makes his debut Saturday, with hopes of making his own splash.

COST:

Adults & students without ASB cards: $6
Students with ASB cards, K-5 students: $4
Seniors (62 +): $4
Family Rate (two adults & two K-5 students): $18

THE TRACK:

Thanks to a levy and a lot of hard work, CHS boasts a pristine new track oval around its football field, and Saturday presents the first opportunity for many to see it up close.

Marinate in the moment, but don’t drag your clodhoppers across the track, OK?

Operate with strip club rules: Look, but don’t touch, or else you may get to meet the bouncers.

SEATING:

The home stands were ripped out prior to the work on the track and the school is going with temporary accommodations for one year.

There will be stands, and they’re still on the same side as usual, but they won’t seat as many as before. Fans are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and blankets and camp out on the grass.

In 2017 new permanent stands (rumored to be covered ones) will rise up on the other side of the field, in front of the apartments, and home fans will switch sides and be closer to the parking lot.

When that happens, concessions will also be moved and new bathrooms will be available.

What is currently the home side will become the road side, but I repeat to everyone who is getting confused, THAT WILL NOT HAPPEN UNTIL 2017.

And, with that, nothing else is left to say except … let’s get ready to ruuuummmmmbbbblllleeeee!!!

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