Teagan Calkins unleashes her full fury. (Jackie Saia photo)
Teagan Calkins may need a nap.
The lone senior on the Coupeville High School varsity volleyball squad was involved in seemingly every play Thursday night, stuffing the stat sheet and doing everything humanly possible to push her team to a win.
Unfortunately for “The Red Dragon,” not even her heroics could save the Wolves on this night, as a balanced La Conner unit led by sister snipers Maeve and Nora McCormick proved to be too much for their hosts.
Falling 25-22, 25-23, 25-19 on their home floor, the rebuilding Wolves slip to 1-7 in Northwest 2B/1B League play, 3-8-1 overall, with three regular season matches left to play.
Coupeville has a week off, not playing again until it hosts Concrete Oct. 23 on what will be Senior Night for Calkins.
After playing a key role on last year’s Wolf squad, which went 18-2 and finished 4th at state, she is the lone veteran this time around, providing steady leadership for a very-young team still trying to find night-in, night-out consistency.
At times Thursday, Scout Smith’s spikers looked very strong, pushing the Braves to the limit.
At others, one error snowballed into a string of mistakes, hurting Coupeville’s ability to keep a more-seasoned La Conner team at bay.
The night got off to a splendid start, with Calkins connecting on back-to-back winners and sophomore setter Tenley Stuurmans scorching the Braves from the service stripe.
But a 4-0 lead evaporated quickly, with the two teams swapping one-point leads most of the way through the frame.
Coupeville’s final lead in the set came at 12-11, and the final tie at 15-15, and once La Conner edged ahead, the visitors held on to the advantage all the way until the end of the set.
The Wolves went down swinging, however, with Haylee Armstrong roaring in on the left side to deliver a thunderous spike and Calkins constantly making the defense guess (usually wrongly) which direction her shots were headed.
Ari Cunningham is part of a talented group of young spikers who show great promise. (Danica Strong photo)
Set #2 featured Ari Cunningham bounding high to deliver several tip winners, and a whole lot more of Calkins mashing the air out of the ball, as the Wolves clung to a 13-11 lead at the midway point.
But just as the Wolves seemed to be making their move, they got derailed, with La Conner using an 11-1 surge to reclaim control.
Adeline Maynes stopped the bleeding with a four-point run on her serve — with Stuurmans catching the Braves by surprise twice with artful flip winners — and CHS later held off four straight set points.
Enter the McCormick sisters however and exit Coupeville’s chances of finding a complete answer.
Down two sets to none, the Wolves fell behind 20-9 in the third but refused to go away easy.
CHS closed the night on a 10-5 surge, with Calkins and Armstrong elevating and thumping, but the lead was too much to fully erase.
Thursday stats:
Haylee Armstrong — 7 kills, 18 digs, 4 assists
Teagan Calkins — 16 kills, 32 digs, 1 assist, 2 block assists, 2 aces
Ari Cunningham — 4 kills, 3 digs
Lexis Drake — 7 digs, 1 solo block, 1 block assist
Adeline Maynes — 9 digs, 2 assists, 1 ace
Kennedy O’Neill — 1 assist
Dakota Strong — 2 kills, 1 dig
Tenley Stuurmans — 4 kills, 11 digs, 25 assists, 4 aces
Sydney Van Dyke — 1 ace
