Dear KFC, this is Andrew Martin. He would happily be your celebrity spokesman, if you paid him in free chicken. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Central Whidbey remembers.
The last time the Coupeville High School varsity football team went to Vashon Island, it made history. And not in a good way.
Two years ago the Wolves surrendered a state-record 573 yards and nine touchdowns to Bryce Hoisington on a dark day in Wolf football history.
Friday night, the epic, never-ending trip to the hinterlands ended in a much happier fashion for Coupeville’s gridiron squad.
Even if the Wolves did have their bus scraped up by a wayward car on the way in, then had to wait an hour-and-a-half in the parking lot for an exit ferry to arrive.
Opening the game with back-to-back pick-sixes — Coupeville led 12-0 before taking its first snap on offense — they crushed Vashon’s spirit and rolled to a 42-7 win.
The victory, which could have been by twice the margin if CHS coach Jon Atkins hadn’t pulled back the reins, snaps a two-game losing skid for the Wolves.
Now 3-2 overall (they’ve already matched last year’s win total) and 1-1 in Olympic/Nisqually League play, they sit just a game out of first place.
Vashon, which has been outscored 248-21 this season, slid to 0-5, 0-2 and sits far removed from the heady days of Hoisington running amuck.
The game didn’t come without a few sour notes, as both of Coupeville’s top weapons, senior Hunter Smith and sophomore Sean Toomey-Stout, exited with injuries.
Smith, the Wolves top receiver, got twisted in three directions at once by Vashon tacklers while executing a running play and spent the second half on the sideline wearing a knit cap instead of a helmet, resting his back.
Thankfully, the early word is he is not expected to miss any future games.
The situation may be more dire for Toomey-Stout, the team’s leading rusher and tackler.
After scoring a pair of first-half touchdowns on short runs, “The Torpedo” took a bad hit to his ankle early in the third quarter. When the team packed up after the game, he limped out on crutches and headed off to the ER with his family.
It was a rough and tumble game all around, as Vashon also lost its best player, Connor Hoisington, Bryce’s younger brother.
Trying to pick up a first down on a fourth-and-two, he went up the middle and had his world exploded by Wolf senior Julian Welling, who came through the porous Vashon line like a semi truck with no brakes.
It was a clean, but lethal hit (the bang could be heard all the way up at the top of the stands) and Hoisington was down on the ground afterwards for some time.
He eventually was able to walk off the field, but, like Toomey-Stout, spent part of his evening in the suddenly-busy Vashon ER.
Welling’s blow was a prime example of how the Wolves played all night.
Jake Pease spent most of the game in the Vashon backfield, or sitting on the Pirate QB’s head, with one sack literally coming after he went airborne and pounced on his foe like a jungle cat unleashed.
Rattled by the constant pressure, Vashon’s signal caller threw the game away in less than three minutes.
Coupeville ended both of the Pirates first two possessions with interceptions which they brought back for touchdowns, taking all the air out of an already deflated home crowd.
On the game’s second offensive play, Smith jumped a route, snatched a wobbly ball and sprinted 45 yards down the left sideline for his sixth score of the year.
Not to be outdone, Cameron Toomey-Stout matched him on the next possession.
A pass over the middle hit a Vashon receiver in the pads and popped up in the air, where the silky-smooth Wolf defensive back was lurking.
Snagging the deflection in traffic, Camtastic skipped, whirled and twirled like a ballet dancer, avoiding five would-be tacklers on his way to pay-dirt some 40 yards away.
About the only thing going Vashon’s way was Coupeville’s surprising inability to hit on either of its first two PAT attempts, as the first one went low and the second one clanged off the scoreboard.
If the Pirates were holding out any kind of hope based on that quirk, they weren’t thinking straight, however.
When the ball finally went into the hands of Wolf QB Hunter Downes, the first quarter was almost played out, so the senior gunslinger moved quickly.
After softening the Vashon defense with a pair of passes to Smith, he rolled to his right and lofted a buttery 27-yard TD strike which dropped with a pleasing plop into Cameron Toomey-Stout’s hands as he lurked in the right corner of the end zone.
This time, CHS mixed things up, going for and converting the two-point conversion on a Smith run.
Up 20-0, the Wolves almost added more in the first quarter, and it came from a somewhat surprising source.
Senior lineman Kyle Rockwell (remember the name, cause you’ll hear it again in a sec), playing in only his second game, batted a Vashon pass into the air and came 99.4% within capturing his own pick-six.
While the ball was in the air, it pinged off of at least six of Rockwell’s body parts before falling just out of his grasp, causing his teammates on the sideline to lose their collective mind cheering for the hard-working, well-liked role player.
Worry not, Wolf fans, because while he might not have gotten the year’s most surprising interception, he returned to get the season’s first blocked punt.
With Vashon pinned deep in its own territory, the Pirate punter took the snap, swung his foot and then screamed like a little girl as Rockwell roared up the middle, punching the kick out of mid-air.
Emerging from behind his rampaging teammate like a heat-seeking missile, Wolf junior Teo Keilwitz followed the bouncing ball and landed on it in the end zone for yet another CHS touchdown.
Toss in two TD runs for Sean Toomey-Stout (one set up by a sweet 14-yard catch under heavy duress from Jake Hoagland) and Coupeville carried a 42-0 lead into the halftime locker room.
If you’re saying, but wait, I’ve been counting points throughout the story and it appears the Wolves picked up an extra one, good eye, and you’re right.
Matt Hilborn crushed PAT kicks on two of the three second-quarter TD’s, while on the final one, the Vashon line got in too quickly for him to have a chance.
Thinking quickly on his feet, holder Shane Losey pulled the ball up and lobbed a flawless spiral over the defense to Sean Toomey-Stout for a two-point conversion.
With the game thoroughly out of hand, and a running clock used in the second half, Coupeville’s coaching staff had a chance to try out some different wrinkles.
Dawson Houston subbed in for Downes at QB in the fourth and, with Sean Toomey-Stout out, the rushing load was handed to sophomore Andrew Martin.
He slammed through the line for several tough-guy gains, then broke through and went down the left side for the Wolves longest run of the night, a 28-yard bolt to daylight.
It was his “KFC run,” cause Martin, possibly the world’s biggest fan of the fast food establishment, was churning like a man who’s been told a free lifetime supply of chicken tenders has been hidden in the end zone.
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