Winter Preview: New coach, new system, at Coupeville

Published 6:05 pm Friday, April 25, 2008

Blake Severance takes over as the new Coupeville girls head basketball coach and brings a lot of experience with him to the program.

He spent the past two seasons as Coupeville’s assistant boys basketball coach and prior to that, he was the assistant boys coach at Mount Rainier High School.

“I worked with three different head coaches and I have picked up a lot of things from different people,” Severance said. “I think I’ve been ready for this for quite awhile now.”

Coupeville has just four players with varsity experience returning.

“We have some young players who are going to get there, it’s just a matter of time,” he said. “It’s a long season and sometimes you have players who start out as middle junior varsity players and by the end of the year they play a lot of varsity minutes.”

Returning players are seniors Shawna West and Hayley Ebersole, along with sophomores Megan Smith and Ashley Manker.

At 5-11, West and Manker are players opponents are going to have to contend with under the basket.

Smith played point guard last season and is an outstanding shooter, and Ebersole is returning to the lineup after being sidelined all last season with a knee injury.

New players on the roster are seniors Sarah Vass and Paige Mueller, who were both members of the junior varsity team last year.

“All the girls work hard and listen well, and they are really trying to understand what’s going on,” Severance said.

Excitement is running high at Coupeville and the girls are looking to improve on last season’s 1-13 league record.

The Wolves finished 5-17 overall and advanced to the district playoffs where they finished 1-2.

“It’s up to me as the coach to get them where they need to be because the girls are going to give everything they’ve got,” Severance said.

Severance said he didn’t know a lot about the other teams in the league, but he expected King’s High School to be good again.

“I worry about six teams. Us first and then King’s because they are the other Class 1A team in the league,” he said. “Then the others are Friday Harbor and the Whatcom County teams. The way they have the district set up, everyone is 0-0 at the start and it’s what you can do from there. Other than that, I’m concerned about who our opponent Friday night is.”