By DAVID SVIEN

Special to the News-Times

In the end, one thing matters — they’re going to the state championships.

No matter how the Coupeville High School varsity volleyball squad got there, no matter how many ups and downs the Wolves experienced Wednesday, the end result trumps everything else.

In a season in which they started 1-4, they’ll step on the bus next Tuesday at 12-5, winners of 11 of their last 12.

And when they take to the courts at the Yakima SunDome Wednesday as one of 16 teams still in contention for a 2B state title, they’ll be the second squad led there by CHS coach Cory Whitmore.

It’ll be a return trip for assistant coach Ashley Menges as well, since she was a player on the last Wolf volleyball team to make it to Yakima — the 2017 edition, which played Castle Rock and Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls) at the big dance.

This year’s team will find out their opening round foe Sunday, when the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association releases the full bracket for the double-elimination tourney, with schools seeded #1-#16.

Coupeville had two shots Wednesday to win one match at the 2B District 1/2 tourney in La Conner, and Cow Town’s spikers came through in crunch time.

The Wolves didn’t upend four-time defending state champ La Conner to claim the bi-district title, though they came within two points of doing so three times.

But they did crunch Northwest Christian of Lacey, the top seed from District 2, for the second time in three days, and that punched their ticket.