A 17-point second quarter took the wind out of the Coupeville girls basketball team Friday night and cross-island rival South Whidbey put up 29 second half points to take a 57-36 victory in Cascade League action.

The loss dropped the Wolves’ league record to 1-7 and 4-11 overall.

The Falcons are .500 in league games at 4-4 and 7-7 overall, and remain in contention for a berth in the Class 2A district playoffs.

South Whidbey’s pressure defense gave Coupeville all kinds of problems in the first period and the Wolves couldn’t get anything going offensively.

The Falcons went on a 15-0 run to open the game until Coupeville’s Kassie Lawson hit a three-point basket with 4:39 remaining in the quarter to break the string.

In the first eight minutes of the game, South Whidbey was just throwing up shots and nearly every one of them found the mark as the Falcons built a 23-7 lead.

In the second period the Wolves finally got on track by outscoring the Falcons 17-5 to cut the lead to 28-24 at the break, but the effort took nearly all the energy out of the Coupeville players.

“We started off slow, but the girls worked hard and fought back into the game,” coach Geoff Kappes said. “I think that took some of the legs out of us and we weren’t able to finish.”

The Wolves were able to score just 12 points in the second half as the Falcons put the game out of reach with a 13-point third period followed by 16 more points in the final quarter.

The game was hotly contested underneath the boards at both ends of the court, and both teams were whistled for 22 fouls.

The Falcons had better luck at the charity stripe hitting on 21 of 28 attempts, while the Wolves were eight of 21.

Coupeville starting players Shawna West and Megan Smith fouled out of the game in the fourth quarter as did South Whidbey’s Lindsey Newman.

“It was a very physical basketball game and our girls fought through constant contact and kept shooting the ball,” Kappes said. “I was proud of them. When things don’t go their way they still don’t throw their hands up, they continue to fight. That says a lot about them.”

Smith and Kayla Lawson led the Wolves in scoring with eight points each.

Newman had 12 points and Chantal LaChaussee had 10 for South Whidbey.