The score wasn’t pretty but the effort was good in Coupeville’s 81-29 loss at first-place King’s in high school boys basketball Tuesday, Jan. 21.

“(We) fought hard against a very, very tough team,” Coupeville coach Brad Sherman said. “Proud of the effort, attitude and fight in our guys.

“Ready to get back to work tomorrow — still a lot of season left.”

The Wolves (1-4, 4-9) will encounter another tough test when they travel to Cedar Park Christian (3-3, 8-7) for a 7 p.m. game Friday, Jan. 24.

Coupeville hosts Port Townsend (3-9) in a non-league game at 6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25, and then wraps up the league schedule with three 6:45 p.m. North Sound Conference games.

The first is when South Whidbey (4-1, 12-3) visits Tuesday, Jan. 28.

The final two games will most likely determine who will take fourth in the league standings and earn an automatic berth in the district tournament. The fifth-place team must win a play-in game to reach district and the sixth will be left out.

Coupeville, Sultan ((2-4, 4-11) and Granite Falls (1-4, 3-12) are all scrambling for fourth.

The Wolves play Granite Falls at home Friday, Jan. 31, and travel to Sultan for the regular-season finale Tuesday, Feb. 4.

King’s, behind 14 points from Tyler Linhardt, blitzed Coupeville 20-6 in the first period and then blanked the Wolves in the second quarter to go up 47-6 at halftime.

The Wolves’ Mason Grove buried a trio of three-point shots to score all 9 of Coupeville’s third-quarter points, but the Knights increased their lead to 62-15.

Coupeville nearly doubled its score with 14 fourth-period points, getting 5 each from Grove and Hawthorne Wolfe.

Grove finished with 14 points, Wolfe 7 and Koa Davison, Sean Toomey-Stout, Jacobi Pilgrim and Gavin Knoblich 2 each.

Linhardt led King’s (5-0, 9-8), which had four players score 12 or more points, with 27.