Wolves’ season ends with playoff loss / Boys basketball

By Jim Waller • February 10, 2020 1:30 am

Mount Baker brought the curtain down on the Coupeville High School boys basketball season by defeating the host Wolves 69-48 Saturday, Feb. 8.

By winning the play-in game, the Mountaineers earned a spot in the district tournament, which begins Monday, Feb. 10.

Coupeville, which featured nine seniors on its varsity roster, finished the season with a 6-13 record (2-7 in North Sound Conference play).

Despite 6 points from Hawthorne Wolfe and a three-pointer from Xavier Murdy, Coupeville trailed 18-11 at the end of the first quarter.

Mount Baker pushed its advantage to 12, 25-13, two minutes into the second period. Behind 5 points from Wolfe and 4 from Murdy, the Wolves sliced the gap to 4, 29-25, with 28 seconds left in the half.

The Mountaineers hit a three in the final seconds to take a 32-25 lead at the break.

The teams traded buckets early in the second half, and then Mount Baker began to pull away thanks to a 10-0 run.

The Wolves got three-pointers from Mason Grove, Murdy and Gavin Knoblich in the third quarter, but the Mountaineers led 52-38 at the end of the period.

Mount Baker’s Braidan Hart, who drained seven three-pointers in the game, drilled three in the fourth quarter to help add to the Mountaineers’ lead and to offset 6 points from Grove and 4 by Ulrik Wells.

Hart finished with a game-high 31 points.

Wolfe scored 13 points for Coupeville, Murdy 10, Grove 9, Wells 8, Knoblich 3, Koa Davison 2, Jacobi Pilgrim 2 and Jered Brown 1.

The Wolves played the game without starter Sean Toomey-Stout, who was out of state attending a funeral.

Starter Davison also sat more than a half with an ankle injury.

One of the goals at the beginning of the season was to make the playoffs, Coupeville coach Brad Sherman said.

The Wolves reached that mark and “don’t have anything to hang their heads about,” he added.

“I like how hard they played. There was a tremendous amount of growth from last season to this one.”

Sherman called the outgoing senior class a “cool group of kids.”

“I’m really proud of them, how hard they fought and how they played with a lot of class this season.”

Sherman also noted the key role the seniors played in “getting people excited about Coupeville basketball.”

“Our youth program grew from 30 to 80 kids, and a lot of that is because of this senior group,” he said. “This is something they can be proud of win, lose or otherwise.”