Coupeville Sports

       Always a star on defense, Chevy Reyes crunched a big-time hit Friday. (John Fisken photo)

Even die-hard Ford truck owners can agree that one Chevy is pretty special.

Coupeville High School junior infielder Chevy Reyes is easy to root for, as she’s a scrapper, a hustler, a vacuum on defense whether she plays third, short or second. And while she may not normally be as big an offensive threat as teammates Hailey Hammer or McKayla Bailey, she has a good eye and always puts the ball in play.

Friday afternoon she did more than put the ball in play, however, lashing a three-run single into right field to seal the deal on a big-time 9-5 win over visiting Sultan.

The victory snapped a short two-game losing skid for the Wolves and brought them to 3-2 overall, 2-2 in Cascade Conference play.

It also signaled the return of the high-powered offense they showed in their first two games — both wins — as they put together a pair of big, four-run innings to whack the Turks.

What was sort of amazing was the two big innings were neatly packaged around a period when the Sultan hurler took down 12 straight Wolves, including striking out the side in the second inning.

But when the offense was working for Coupeville, it was working.

In the bottom of the first, Bailey started things off by crunching a blast to right center which the outfielder dropped, letting the sophomore slugger scamper to second.

After that came a hard shot off the third baseman’s glove from Maria Rockwell for a single and an RBI single on a frozen rope from Hammer.

Then things got wild.

Bessie Walstad beat out a chopper to load the bags, before Rockwell streaked home and beat the tag on Madeline Strasburg’s chopper. With the bases juiced, Breeanna Messner punched an RBI single into right and Walstad ended up following Hammer across the plate when Sultan compounded their problems by overthrowing third.

Then, just as quickly, the Wolf power show shut off, the Turk hurler started humming and Sultan scraped back to 4-4, capping their rally with back-to-back home runs that barely cleared the new fences, which were in closer than intended.

“They’re supposed to be farther back,” Wolf coach David King grumbled good-naturedly (he did win). “They’re getting moved back. That’s for sure.”

Enter Rockwell, who slammed the door shut with back-to-back strikeouts to end the top of the fifth, then ripped a hard single to kick things off in the bottom half of the inning.

With runners at second and third after a Hammer single and a passed ball, Walstad broke the tie with an RBI grounder up the middle that the Turk second baseman dove for and just barely missed.

Not content to hang on to a one-run lead, Coupeville tried to bunt Walstad over, but Strasburg was too quick and actually got a hit on the play, loading the sacks for Reyes.

Cue the spotlight, as she cranked the ball into the wilds of right field.

Coupeville tacked on a final run in the sixth, when Hammer bounced a ball off the fence to score Madeline Roberts, then Rockwell went back to work. Her final pitch exploded into Walstad’s glove for a called third strike, her fourth punch-out over three innings, and the celebration was on.

With starters Haley Sherman and Sydney Aparicio unavailable, King used his bench adroitly, getting at-bats for Monica Vidoni and Emily Coulter (her first) and field time for Julia Felici and Elena Jimenez Guerra (her first defensive stint).