A battling Coupeville High School basketball team rallied from a 27-21 halftime deficit with a 6-0 run to open the third quarter but couldn’t take the lead and fell to South Whidbey 51-39 in a Tuesday Cascade Conference game.

The Wolves lost their eighth straight game to fall to 0-8 in the league and 3-11 overall.

Following the pair of free throws by Katie Smith that tied the score, the Falcons reeled off 10 straight points and led 37-29 after three quarters of play.

“That run hurt us,” coach Blake Severns said. “In all our league games right now, we are about 10 points down for all the games.”

In the final period of action, South Whidbey’s all-star senior Lindsey Newman scored all of the Falcon’s 14 points to put the game out of reach.

Newman scored a game-high 31 points, including a 15-for-21 effort at the free throw line.

Cassidi Rosenkrance led Coupeville with 10 points. Katie Smith scored nine points and leading scorer Megan Smith had eight before fouling out in the fourth quarter.

“The girls are playing hard which is nice to see,” Severns said. “What we need to do is be more consistent in what we’re doing and we need to focus more. We’re a young team and still learning, but we’re right there.”