Tough weekend for Wolves / Boys basketball

It was a weekend the Coupeville High School boys basketball team would like to forget.

On Friday, Dec. 8, Coupeville lost 59-35 to visiting Sequim, and then came the nightmare, a 73-12 loss at South Whidbey Saturday.

Both Sequim (3-0) and South Whidbey (5-0) remained undefeated with the wins.

Coupeville (1-3) will need to recover in a hurry as the Wolves begin Olympic League play at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 12, when Port Townsend (2-2) visits.

Sequim 59, Coupeville 35

In a battle of two teams that share the same mascot, the Wolves, the visitors from Sequim dominated the paint early to go up 14-8 after the first quarter. It could have been worse, but Sequim failed to convert on a handful of shots from close range. Coupeville’s Joey Lippo also turned back Sequim with three blocks in the quarter.

Coupeville, behind buckets by Jered Brown and Hunter Smith, cut the lead to 16-13, then Sequim took off on a 12-0 run and led 35-22 at halftime.

Sequim pushed its advantage to 47-30 at the end of the third quarter.

Hunter Smith scored 15 points for Coupeville, followed by Ethan Spark (11), Brown (3), Hunter Downes (2), Dane Lucero (2) and Lippo (2).

Payton Glasser, a 6-5 wing, paced Sequim with a game-high 30.

“I thought we played them fairly tough on defense,” Coupeville coach Brad Sherman said. “They were big and strong down low.”

Sherman liked how his post, 5-10 Downes, “fought super hard” and worked for “good position” against his taller opponents.

Offensively, Coupeville had opportunities but the shots weren’t falling, Sherman said.

“The beauty of non-league games is that you can learn from them and move on.”

Sequim captured the JV game 65-19.

Coupeville’s Mason Grove hit four three-pointers and finished with 14 points.

South Whidbey 73, Coupeville 12

“Not much you can say about that one,” Sherman said. “Just not our night against a very good basketball team.

“(I’m) proud of our guys. They kept their heads up and played hard until the end.”

South Whidbey couldn’t miss and Coupeville couldn’t score.

In fact, the Wolves scored only 2 points in three different quarters and had only two players score in the game.

Cameron Toomey-Stout hit a bucket in the first quarter for the Wolves’ only points in the period, then Smith did all the scoring from that point on.

The Falcons led 20-2, 39-4 and 54-10 at the end of the first three quarters.

South Whidbey’s all-conference guard Lewis Pope finished with 31 points to lead all scorers.

South Whidbey also won the junior varsity game, 52-34.

Grove continued his hot shooting, nailing five three-balls and tallying 19 points.

“We played tough and I am very proud of the guys and how we played,” coach Chris Smith said. “We played hard all game and I just couldn’t outwit some of the adjustments they made to slow down our offense.

“I like how we attempted to get our big guys involved in the offense. Jake (Pease) and Jean (Lund-Olsen) were rebounding machines on both ends of the court.”