Fourth-quarter eruption fuels Coupeville win / Girls basketball

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, January 31, 2017

The Coupeville High School girls basketball team used a 14-4 run at the beginning of the fourth quarter to unknot a close game on the way to a 37-31 non-league win over visiting Sequim Monday, Jan. 30.

Coupeville, winners of 10 straight, and Sequim (6-12) meet in a rematch in Sequim at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2.

Coupeville (8-0, 14-3) will attempt to finish its third consecutive undefeated Olympic League season when it hosts second-place Port Townsend (4-3, 8-7) at 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 5, in the final regular season game.

Coupeville and Sequim, who share the nickname Wolves, also shared strong defensive efforts in the game.

Another common thread was their offensive outputs. Coupeville scored 6 points in the first quarter, 6 points in the second and 7 in the third. Sequim tallied 5 in the first, 5 in the second and 7 in the third.

Both teams went to full-court presses in the fourth quarter and the tempo and scoring picked up, and each club nearly doubled its scoring efforts from the previous three quarters. Coupeville recorded 18 and Chimacum 14 points in the final period.

One key to the win was Coupeville’s free throw shooting.

In Coupeville’s previous game, an easy win, it didn’t matter that the Wolves missed all 10 of their foul shots in the fourth quarter.

In Monday’s tight contest, Coupeville sank eight of 12 in the last period (12-for-18 for the game).

Coupeville led 19-17 after three quarters, then went on a 14-4 run, which included the 8 made free throws, to go ahead 33-21 with 3:06 left in the game.

Coupeville also went to a full-court press that gave Sequim trouble.

Sequim used its own press in the final three minutes and climbed back into the game, trimming its deficit to four, 35-31, with 15 seconds left.

Sequim appeared to get within 3 points when it sank a free throw with 5 seconds remaining. The shot was nullified, however, because of a lane violation, one of three makes by Sequim in the game that were erased because of lane infractions.

Coupeville scored at the buzzer when Sarah Wright lofted a full court pass over the Sequim press to Lindsey Roberts for a layup.

The star of the night for Coupeville was Mia Littlejohn. Time and again the junior point guard ignited the Wolves with timely buckets and pin-point assists. In addition, when her team struggled against Sequim’s fourth-quarter press, she used her ball handling prowess to navigate out of trouble.

“She saved us,” coach David King said.

Littlejohn scored a game-high 15 points, including a three-pointer, on 5-of-9 shooting. She also had a team-high four assists and shared the steal lead (with her sister Kalia Littlejohn and Mikayla Elfrank) with three.

Elfrank finished with 9 points and 6 rebounds; Kailey Kellner had 4 points and five rebounds.

Roberts had 4 points and Kalia Littlejohn 3.

Lauren Grove led the strong defensive effort, limiting Sequim’s high-scoring Adrienne Haggerty, who, at 6-feet, is six inches taller than Grove, to 10 points.