Wolf freshman Mia Littlejohn drilled a huge second-half three-point bomb Monday. (John Fisken photos)
Makana Stone, seen here in an earlier game, scored a team-high 15.
Bouncing back from a 10-day break and spurred on by the emotional return of Maddie Big Time, the Coupeville High School girls’ basketball squad led from opening tip to final buzzer Monday night.
The resulting 44-37 non-conference win over visiting Vashon Island was the fourth victory in the last five games for the Wolves and lifted them to 6-3 on the season.
And, while it wasn’t a flawless game, it did capture Coupeville at its grittiest.
Three times the Pirates pulled to within a single point, before launching one final, furious 10-2 fourth quarter run, and, every time, the Wolves blunted their charge with big plays.
None might have been bigger than a dead-eye jumper from the team’s lone freshman.
Clinging to a 27-26 lead late in the third, Coupeville pushed hard to open things back up.
The aforementioned Maddie Big Time, senior Madeline Strasburg, back in the lineup after missing seven games with an injury, drove the ball hard at the hoop on a breakaway.
Her shot, taken under pressure, rolled off the rim at the last second, but Strasburg followed her ball and tipped it to Mia Littlejohn.
Trailing the play on the right side, Littlejohn took the second chance and made it count, pump-faking her defender off her feet before softly drilling the three-ball to stretch the lead back out.
That play ended up kicking off an 11-1 run that went from the final minute of the third deep into the fourth.
After not getting the lead out past eight all game, CHS suddenly found itself with its largest bulge at 38-27 when Wynter Thorne knocked down a driving jumper.
But Vashon, which hit five treys of its own, surged right back.
Coupeville put together an electrifying basket when Kacie Kiel kicked the ball half the length of the court to Strasburg, who spun under her defender and dropped it to an airborne Makana Stone, who rolled it off her fingertips for two.
Unfortunately, the Pirates put together a 10-point surge of their own around that lone Coupeville bucket, with back-to-back threes cutting the lead to 40-37.
But that’s where the bend, but don’t break, rule came into effect one final, convincing time.
Running the final two minutes off the clock, the Wolves put the game away with a give-and-go bucket from Strasburg and a put-back off a rebound from Stone, who out-jumped the Vashon defenders by a good five inches.
The rebound capped a stellar all-around effort for the Coupeville junior, who poured in a game-high 15 while setting up teammates with a string of precision passes.
Kiel, in particular, benefited, draining three straight jumpers in the first quarter as Coupeville bolted out to an 8-0 lead.
Vashon hit back-to-back three point bombs to get close, before Stone used a three-possession run to lay down the law.
First she threw down a short jumper, then spun and hit Monica Vidoni with the set-up for an inside bucket, before taking a steal the length of the court for a spinning layup.
The Wolves, who hadn’t played since a win at Orcas Island Dec. 19, had fresh legs and were enthusiastic, which helped balance out a couple of stretches of poor shot selection.
Strasburg, who had been operating as a vocal, if unpaid, second assistant coach since going down in the season opener against South Whidbey, was a jolt of energy.
She pumped in eight, tying Kiel for second-best, but her hustle and heart, including several times where she slammed to the floor in pursuit of loose balls, gives an already solid team the touch of danger it missed with her sidelined.
Littlejohn drained five in support of the big three, while Thorne (4), Vidoni (2) and Julia Myers (2) all chipped in.
Hailey Hammer pounded away underneath, collecting rebounds and one “ooh”-worthy rejection on a Vashon player, while McKenzie Bailey gave the Wolves a spark off the bench.
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