Emma Smith and CHS volleyball won a league title in the fall, picking up eight conference wins along the way. (John Fisken photos)
Jakobi Baumann was part of a Wolf tennis team which successfully defended its league title.
The champ is staggered, down, but not necessarily out.
Winter was rough for Klahowya, which got just two league wins combined from its varsity boys and girls basketball squads, thanks in large part to a combination of injuries and bad luck.
That’s allowed Coupeville to surge ahead in the standings at the two-thirds point of the 2016-2017 school year, boasting the most combined varsity team wins of any 1A Olympic League school.
If the Wolves can hold fast through the spring — where they are the defending league champs in baseball and girls tennis — they would unseat the Eagles, who have ruled the roost in the league’s first two years.
To get these totals, I look at 10 of the 11 sports in which Coupeville vies with its conference rivals.
That means skipping track, which is the only one of the 11 not to be a true head-to-head team sport.
Track is an individual sport conducted in the guise of a team sport, with meets typically involving a jumble of schools from different classifications. Any attempt at keeping track of a team win-loss record is a waste of time.
And this is Coupeville Sports, so if the Wolves don’t field a team (wrestling, swim, gymnastics), it would be equally pointless for me to consider that sport.
So, what I do look at is regular season league varsity wins in football, volleyball, girls and boys soccer, girls and boys tennis, girls and boys basketball, baseball and softball.
A season-by season comparison:
2014-2015:
Klahowya 52 wins/5 league titles
Coupeville 40/2
Chimacum 23/2
Port Townsend 20/1
2015-2016:
Klahowya 45/3
Coupeville 42/4
Chimacum 26/2
Port Townsend 22/1
2016-2017 (fall and winter):
Coupeville 32/3
Klahowya 24/1
Port Townsend 22/1
Chimacum 13/-
All-time:
Klahowya 121/9
Coupeville 114/9
Port Townsend 64/3
Chimacum 62/4
Now first, if you’re counting football, volleyball, girls soccer, boys tennis and girls and boys basketball, you might think I missed a title this year.
I didn’t, though, as the Olympic League united with the Nisqually League for football, and when the 8-team gridiron conglomerate anointed its champ, the crown went to outsider Cascade Christian.
Looking at the numbers, here’s what I see happening over the first two-and-two-thirds years of our conference.
In the early going Klahowya, which is the second-largest 1A school in the state with 445 students in the last WIAA classification count, got off to a strong start.
To the surprise of probably many, Coupeville, which is the smallest school in the league (227 students to PT’s 278 and Chimacum’s 250) hung tough, then quickly realized it could do more than just that.
While KSS has nearly double the student body of CHS, after years of facing down large 2A schools and private school powerhouses in the Cascade Conference, any fear factor evaporated quickly.
In year two, every other school’s win numbers went up, at Klahowya’s expense.
Plus, in a huge psychological boost, Coupeville doubled its league titles in year two, repeating in girls basketball and tennis, while taking baseball and boys tennis away from the Eagles.
That trend is continuing in year three, as boys tennis and girls basketball repeated (the hoops squad is 27-0 all-time in league play), while volleyball snatched another title away from Klahowya.
As we head into the spring, Coupeville’s greatest strength is girls tennis, which has swept titles in both years, going 11-0 in league play.
Klahowya can counter with boys soccer, also a two-time champ, and 12-0 all-time.
The two sports which could decide things are the ones played on the diamond.
Chimacum is a two-time defending softball champ, but the Eagles have the league’s best player in standout junior hurler Amber Bumbalough.
The Wolves, who got off to a great start last year, then spiraled a bit at the end, boast a lineup stacked with young talent like Katrina McGranahan, Hope Lodell, Sarah Wright and Lauren Rose.
Baseball went to Klahowya in year one, then Coupeville surprised in year two.
The Wolves lost key players to graduation in CJ Smith and Cole Payne, while Port Townsend, which went win-less in 2016, is seeing a noticeable uptick in all boys sports across the board this year.
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