Who knew such an early shot would be so significant?

Up 21-19, midway through the second quarter, Coupeville surrendered a three pointer along with the lead to 2A Meridian — they never got it back.

Battling to eight lead changes and five ties through the first 11 minutes, the game started out at a back-and-forth pace. The Trojans, however, used junior Bryan Black’s long shot at the 3:35 mark of the second to propel them toward a 61-46 road victory on Friday night.

“I thought we played really well for a long time,” CHS coach Randy King said. “We just couldn’t get the lead back there at the end.”

Going up 22-21 on Black’s first bucket, Meridian narrowly hovered above Coupeville early in the second half before it pulled away in the fourth.

Not only did Black’s second-quarter bucket put Meridian up for good, but it opened the floodgates for the 6-foot-4 junior. He connected on three more three-point shots and led his team with 21 points. His 6-foot-6 brother Deuce added 19 points.

“They’re something else,” said King of the Black brothers.

The Wolves managed to inch within one score of the Trojans on six different occasions in the third, but couldn’t get over the hump.

“They have a lot of big bodies and we got tired, we got real tired,” King said.

Coupeville, which found early success going to 6-foot-3 senior guard Mike Bagby, couldn’t feed him the ball in the final quarter.

Bagby, who ended with a game-high 28 points, scored just once in the final frame.

“The last play we actually got Mike the ball inside,” King said. “We couldn’t do that for five minutes, we just couldn’t get it in there.”

Turnovers also hurt the Wolves in the second half.

They had just three over the first two quarters, but committed 12 during the final two.

Meridian 13 19 17 12 — 61

Coupeville 12 14 14 6 — 46

Scoring: Coupeville-Bagby 28, O’Keefe 6, Smith 6, King 2, Larson 2, Miller 2. Meridian-B. Black 21, D. Black 19, Keough 9, Himes 3, Lintz 3, Froberg 2, Hazel 2, Slesk 2.

Lakewood 56, CHS 49

Second-half troubles continued for Coupeville on Saturday night, as they lost 56-49 to 2A Lakewood.

Headed into the fourth quarter with a 43-40 lead the Wolves’ offense began to sputter.

“They put a bunch of pressure on us and we just didn’t seem to get the ball to our shooters,” King said.

CHS committed 18 turnovers on Saturday.

Bagby, who averaged 30 points over his first two games, was held to just 13 on Saturday.

“They played a box-in-one on him,” King said. “It was pretty difficult for us to get him the ball.”

The defense did open up opportunity for other Coupeville players, however, and they rose to the occasion. Sophomore Kramer O’Keefe scored a team-high 15 points, while hitting two three pointers. Six-foot-six sophomore Brian Miller also found success, tallying 13 points inside the key.

The two losses bumped Coupeville to 1-2 in non-league play.

Despite the struggles over the weekend, King is pleased with his team’s progression.

“The big idea was to get better and I think we did that,” he said.

The Wolves play in a tournament at Port Townsend this Friday and Saturday and will host Northwest A/B opponent Mount Vernon Christian at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 13.

Lakewood 17 13 10 16 — 56

Coupeville 17 11 15 6 — 49

Scoring: Coupeville-O’Keefe 15, Bagby 13, Miller 13, Smith 6, Kelley 2. Lakewood-Wiederkehr 22, Fure 10, Loucks 6, D. Borisov 5, S. Borisov 4, Haugen 4, Bird 3, Scott 2.