A double-back pick with five seconds remaining in the game resulted in a lay-in basket by Eric Stallman and the Coupeville boys basketball team lost another close one, falling to South Whidbey 45-43 in a Tuesday Cascade League matchup.
Coupeville remains winless in the league at 0-2 and 4-4 overall, and three of the Wolves’ losses this season have been by three points or less.
“They made one more big play than we did,” coach Randy King said. “We had a good effort tonight and only gave up 45 points. I was happy with that.”
Both teams ran the court in the first quarter but couldn’t put the ball in the hoop until South Whidbey’s Chad Anderson finally connected at the 5:53 mark.
After that, baskets came fast and furious with the Falcons building a 9-0 lead before Coupeville’s Casey Larson nailed the first of his two three-point baskets with 2:55 remaining in the period.
Larson, the Wolves’ senior guard, scored all of his team’s points in the first quarter and finished with a game-high 14 points before hurting his back in the third period.
“I had a pretty good first half and then I got thrown to the floor going after a rebound,” he said.
Trailing 12-8 after the first period, Coupeville battled back hitting seven shots from the charity stripe to tie the score 20-20 before Kyle Asay drilled a three-point bomb at the buzzer to give the Falcons a 23-20 halftime advantage.
Both teams played evenly in the third period scoring 12 points apiece and the Wolves went into the final eight minutes of action still trailing by three points, 35-32.
South Whidbey went on a run early in the final quarter building a six point, 41-34 lead, but Coupeville fought back and when Brian Miller canned a pair of free throws with 1:28 remaining to knot the score at 43-43.
The Wolves had two chances in the final minute to put the game away but couldn’t get their shots to fall and after a South Whidbey time out, Stallman put down the winning basket.
“They put a double-back pick on me and I didn’t get any help,” Miller said. “They were able to get one of their players down low but I can’t blame anyone, it just happened. If we had made some shots early in the game, we could have won. It was a good game, though.”
Miller scored six points in the game and junior Kramer O’Keefe was the second player in double figures for the Wolves with 13 points, including a trio from three-point range.
Coupeville had one final chance to pull the game out, but Trevor Tucker’s three-pointer at the buzzer fell just short.
“We did some nice things on offense, but we just couldn’t hit our shots early in the game,” King said. “Sometimes it’s just one big play that decides the outcome of a game and they were the ones that made it tonight.”
Anderson paced South Whidbey with 12 points.
