The Coupeville boys basketball team put the finishing touches on a fine regular season by beating visiting Lakewood 64-51 Friday, and the Wolves aren’t ready for the year to end.
In order to keep the season alive, Coupeville will have to get past Nooksack Valley in the loser-out first round of the district tournament.
The Wolves (16-4, 11-3), fresh off finishing second in the Cascade Conference, host the Pioneers (4-9, 10-10) Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Friday Harbor (10-2, 11-9) goes to Lynden Christian (5-8, 10-10) in the other loser-out game.
The winner of the Coupeville game will go to Meridian (8-5, 13-7) Thursday at 7 p.m. King’s (13-1, 16-4) will host the winner of the other Tuesday game.
Nooksack Valley, Meridian and Lynden Christian are the 1A schools that play in the 3A/2A/1A Northwest Conference. Friday Harbor competes in the 1A/2B Northwest League, and King’s is the champion of Coupeville’s Cascade Conference.
Coupeville coach Randy King said, “Every good team has good guards,” and added that Coupeville will face a trio of strong ones in the Nooksack Valley matchup.
Kyle Impero, 6-2, leads the Pioneers with a 14.5 points per game average. Fellow 6-2 shooting guard Brent Gwimmer is Nooksack’s 3-point specialist, and 5-9 point guard Nick Westergreen runs the show.
King said, “They are a good club. Well, all of the teams we will face from now on are good clubs, and we have to come ready to play.” King also said he knows his team has the ability to “git er dun” against any of the district opponents.
The Wolves’ victory over Lakewood sent their five seniors out as winners on Senior Night. King started the quintet of 12th-graders: J.D. Wilcox, Jason Bagby, Erik King, Chad Brookhouse and Tim Walstad.
Bagby scored nine points and Brookhouse six in the first quarter as the Wolves took control early. They lead 17-9 at the quarter and 33-20 at the break.
Lakewood never threatened in the second half.
Bagby and Brookhouse continued their scoring throughout the contest and finished with 19 and 14 respectively. Hunter Hammer added 11 points and 14 rebounds.
Walstad, told by King before the game he needed 10 rebounds to end the regular season with 100, grabbed an extra one to finish the game with 11 rebounds and five points.
Wilcox scored nine points, Ian Smith four and Tyler King two.
Coach King said, “I really like the way our defense is playing; it has really improved.”
He was equally pleased with his club’s ability to take care of the basketball against the Cougars. The Wolves had just five turnovers in the first half and four in the second.
