Coupeville Sports

     Wolf coach David King demonstrates the proper throwing technique. A technique not embraced by South Whidbey, it seems… (John Fisken photo)

Getting there wasn’t always pretty, but the final score was beautiful.

Fully taking advantage of an extraordinarily wild South Whidbey defense that committed 15 errors in the game, the Coupeville High School softball squad rallied for six runs in the bottom of the sixth (without hitting the ball out of the infield), claiming a huge 11-8 win Monday.

The victory lifted the Wolves to 4-4 overall, 3-4 in Cascade Conference play, while keeping the Falcons winless.

The second win in as many games against their Island rivals (they also play April 29 in Langley), it guaranteed Coupeville will be the top 1A seed come playoff time.

The Wolves busted open a close game in the sixth, when they put their first six runners on base.

Strong hitting and quick feet from Coupeville put South Whidbey on edge, and throws from its infielders, which had been marginal at best, got frighteningly bad as the inning wore on.

Making matters worse for them, their pitcher suddenly couldn’t locate home with a map, compass and a native guide.

Walks to Madeline Roberts and Maria Rockwell, packaged around a bunt from McKayla Bailey in which the Falcon infielder airmailed the ball up somewhere close to Oak Harbor, loaded the sacks.

After a wild pitch allowed Roberts to scamper home and tie the score at 6, Hailey Hammer and Bessie Walstad earned back-to-back walks to force in another run. Then Sydney Aparicio rapped a hard chopper and the resulting wild throw sent two more Wolves home.

Things weren’t done quite yet, however, as the Falcon catcher threw the ball over her pitcher’s head, letting another run in, then the 15th and final error let the Wolves ring up their final run.

While South Whidbey’s wildness will become the subject of legends passed down, Coupeville also smacked the ball around, netting eight hits, including doubles from Bailey, Haley Sherman and Hailey Hammer.

The Wolves were actually on their way to ringing up big numbers early, but ran themselves out of the first inning. After Bailey doubled home Roberts, Rockwell slapped a single to put runners at first and second.

Hammer then crunched the ball off the bottom of the fence, but Bailey lost the flight of the ball and doubled back only to run into Rockwell, who was steaming around third. Trapped in a rundown, she went down meekly, and Rockwell was then gunned down at the plate on the next play.

Other than that play, Bailey was golden, gunning fast balls from the mound and slapping RBI hits almost every time she touched the ball.

With the Wolf defense the exact opposite of the Falcon defense — Hammer made a beautiful snag on a shot at third and threw out the runner by a step while Chevy Reyes knocked down a line drive on the fly and recovered to flip it to Walstad for the out — Coupeville built an early 5-1 lead.

South Whidbey finally got its bats humming and rallied to take a 6-5 lead, but Rockwell came in from shortstop to short-circuit the Falcons, holding the deficit to one. Her first pitch caused the South Whidbey batter to simultaneously jump back in fear and weakly swing and miss, setting the tone for the final two innings.

Then came the rally, the celebration and another long, tear-stained drive home for the Falcon faithful.

And, when you have that, it really doesn’t matter how you got there, just that you did get there.