Coupeville Sports

Wolf slugger McKayla Bailey, seen here in an earlier season game, had two hits Monday. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

There are days … days you’d like to forget.

Monday was one of those days for Coupeville High School softball coach David King.

“As a team we did not have the focus needed to come and compete today,” King said. “We started our warm-ups with one player not having cleats, another didn’t have her glove. Then while warming up a player got hit in the forehead on a thrown ball.

“We are making the same mistakes at this point in the season that we made at the beginning of the year,” he added. “The other teams are out-hustling us. We are playing hard and the effort is there, we just have a mental lapse at times and it comes back to hurt us.”

Which is a nice way of getting around to the fact the Wolves were soundly thrashed by the worst team in the league, falling 7-1 at South Whidbey. The sixth consecutive loss for Coupeville, it dropped them to 4-10 overall, 3-10 in league play.

The Wolves actually jumped out to a 1-0 lead, but couldn’t hold it.

After a Bessie Walstad walk, McKayla Bailey smashed a single off the pitcher’s knee and Madeline Strasburg plated Walstad with a single to right. But then the rally died there and was never re-lit.

Five runs in the bottom of the third, as the Falcons sent 10 hitters to the plate, doomed Coupeville. The big turning point was a two-run home run off the bat of Mckenzie Hezel.

The Wolves were only out-hit eight to five, with Hailey Hammer bopping a double and Bailey collecting two base knocks, but they stranded eight runners and whiffed 11 times.

Another Coupeville player who put good “wood” on the ball every time at the plate Monday was pitcher/shortstop Maria Rockwell.

She smacked a single and just missed a second one when she hit a ball so hard, it got to the outfielder quick enough to nab her at first by half a step. Which is not easy to do with Rockwell blazing down the base path.

“The past week her approach has improved at the plate and she is starting to square up the ball more and hitting it with more authority,” King said.

Coupeville will get a chance to break its slide with a home game Wednesday against first-place Cedarcrest, before hitting the road for a doubleheader at Archbishop Thomas Murphy Friday.