Coupeville Sports

Clay Reilly transforms into Miguel Cabrera. (Joe Lippo photo)

Four Central Whidbey baseball stars are continuing to play ball deep into the fall, and parent/blogger Joe Lippo is along for the ride. His story from the trenches:

Saturday rolled around, and with storm clouds gathering on the horizon, North Whidbey and Anacortes met again at Volunteer Park for their weekly Junior League Fall Ball contest.

For a while there, it looked like the oversized North (and Central) Whidbey squad would lend a few players to Anacortes due to some no-shows, but the roster filled out as parents realized that the rain would hold off.

The day started like the last one, and the visiting North (and Central) Whidbey team began the afternoon at the plate.

First batter up was Coupeville’s own Joey Lippo, who set the tone for the game with a lead-off single past the Anacortes shortstop, maintaining his 1.000% on base percentage on the season.

Another Coupeville resident, Clay Reilly, followed up with a walk, during which time Lippo vacated first base for the better views and real estate value of second base.

Reilly also had a hit deep to left field, which should have been a triple, but as Clay rounded second base at full stride, he noticed that the Anacortes third baseman had inexplicably vacated his position and was somewhere in left field for the cutoff. So, of course, he kept going all the way to home, resulting in an inside the park home run.

In comments made after the game, Reilly indicated that he wasn’t really going to stop anyway, so we will count it as a home run.

With the exception of Reilly’s HR, all of the Coupeville sluggers did about the same (and if any of this is wrong, blame the back of the soggy envelope I scribbled it on):

Clay Reilly – Single, HR, BB
Joey Lippo – Single, 2 BB
Ethan Marx – 2 BB
Johnny Thurston – 2 BB

So, as you might conclude, Anacortes pitching wasn’t really where they wanted it to be.

However, when it was, North (and Central) Whidbey took the ball for a ride. There were a couple notable standouts from the Great White North that bear mentioning, even though this is a Coupeville Sports blog, and may get censored by the Great and Powerful OB (Owner of Blog).

James Besaw, who has the distinction of being (arguably) the fastest player on the team, got to first every time he was at the plate, and then proceeded to steal so many bases that the Anacortes PD started looking into the matter.

He also got caught in a rundown trying to steal home, but evaded all attempts to tag him out and ended up sitting in a cloud of dust at home plate while the ball rolled away from the pitcher.

Another North Whidbey player, Matthew Boyd, was definitely dialed in as he stroked no less than three doubles into the deep outfield of Volunteer Park, driving in many runs and making the biggest contribution to the 17-2 (5 inning) victory for North Whidbey.