Logan Martin, seen here last season, went for seven points Monday in a hard-fought game with Stevens. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
It was a small moment, but the kind of thing likely to pay dividends down the road.
As his teammates milled around, talking to family, or headed to the door after Monday’s game, Coupeville 8th grade basketball star Hawthorne Wolfe sprinted back and forth in the CMS gym.
By the time he was done, he had run a mile, his own personal atonement for missing free throws early in the contest against visiting Stevens.
The free throws hadn’t been the deciding factor in the game, and Wolfe had led the Wolves in scoring, yet he felt the need to put in extra work, to not settle for good, but aim for better.
Off to the side, his teammate, Logan Martin, head phones back on and in his own world, lofted shot after shot, working on his mid-range game.
In a sport where success is built on and off the court, in season and out, the actions of the two young players bodes well for the future of Coupeville basketball.
So does their play on the court Monday, where the undermanned Wolves made several runs at their much-taller rivals before falling 56-46.
In the opening game of the doubleheader, the CMS 7th graders made a big jump forward offensively from their first game of the season, more than tripling their previous output in a 44-20 loss.
8th grade:
A mismatch everywhere but between the lines.
Coupeville had seven players, Stevens close to 37 (or so it seemed), and the visitors had a huge height advantage.
Yet, take away one bad stretch to open the fourth quarter, when the somewhat-gassed Wolves surrendered a 12-0 run, and the game was a knock-down brawl.
The Wolves jumped out early, snagging a 5-2 lead on a pair of free throws from Caleb Meyer and a three-ball off the fingertips of Xavier Murdy, then weathered repeated Stevens runs.
The game took on a particular rhythm — the visitors would surge, the game would start to slip away, then CMS would dig deep and rally right back.
Coupeville used a 9-4 run, with Martin scoring five, to close within a basket right before the end of the half.
Then the Wolves went cold for a bit, allowing Stevens to open the third with eight straight points, stretching its lead to 13.
Game over and … nope, here come the never-say-die guys in red and white.
Murdy tossed in another three-ball to kick off a rally, Grady Rickner closed it with a trey of his own, and, in between, Martin fed Wolfe for a layup with a superb outlet pass and Meyer put on a dribbling show, weaving between three different defenders while never losing the handle.
As Rickner’s shot tickled the net on its way down, Coupeville was back within 37-31 heading into the fourth and all the momentum had seemingly swung its way.
Except momentum is a fickle mistress.
Cue 12 straight points for the bad guys to open the fourth, and, once again, irrational joy for the Stevens fans in attendance.
But, down by 18, the Wolves still had some fight down deep in their souls.
Wolfe connected on back-to-back three-balls from the right side, Rickner tossed in a trey from the top and Meyer held his ground against the Stevens big trees, glaring down one elbow-prone rival who tried to rough up Murdy.
A final 15-7 surge cut the margin back down, and left CMS with remarkably-balanced scoring.
Murdy, Wolfe and Rickner netted 10 apiece, while Martin and Meyer had seven each. Cody Roberts added a bucket and some stellar defense, while Gabe Shaw worked hard on the boards during his time on the court.
In the end, the score wasn’t what they wanted, maybe, but the Wolves walked away, heads held high, eyes already on the rematch, which comes in the season finale Jan. 19.
Well, except for Wolfe, who was off and running, and Martin, who was putting up jumpers before the Stevens players had fully boarded their bus.
The will is strong in these ones, and it’s good to see.
7th grade:
Take a very polished, aggressive Stevens squad and throw them against a Coupeville team on which probably half the players are in their first season of basketball, and the result was as expected.
But the young Wolves, steadied by 8th grader Aiden Burdge, who jumped teams to run the point for a team in desperate need of a ball-handler, played progressively better as the game unfolded.
CMS brought the margin down in each quarter, from 14-2 to 12-6 to 11-7 to 7-5.
The Wolves even had a final three-point attempt, which, if it hadn’t skimmed out, would have given them a fourth quarter “win.”
Isaiah Bittner garnered Coupeville’s first basket, banging home a turnaround jumper in the final minute of the first quarter, and went on to score a team-high six points.
Burdge added four points, a blocked shot on which he came from behind to snuff the shot of a taller foe, and was a calming influence for the Wolves, who were under constant attack from Steven’s scrappy defenders.
Dominic Coffman (3), Alex Murdy (3), Kevin Partida (2) and Shaw (2) rounded out the offensive attack.
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