Coupeville Sports

  Josh Bayne, seen here doing a home run trot last season, got Coupeville’s first RBI of the new season Monday. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Timing. It’s all about timing.

Breaking out of an early-game funk, the Coupeville High School baseball squad exploded for five runs in the fifth inning Monday, propelling themselves to a huge come-from-behind 8-4 win over arch-rival South Whidbey.

The Opening Day victory was sweet for multiple reasons.

One, it came on the road. Two, it showed the Wolves are resilient. Three, it was the kind of game where nearly everyone on the field chipped in with a key play.

Oh yes, and did I mention they beat their closest rivals and the only other 1A school playing baseball in the Cascade Conference? Cause that’s kind of a big deal, every day and in every way.

The two schools will get back at it twice more this week with games in Coupeville Wednesday and back in Langley on Friday. Coupeville will also host South Whidbey Thursday in the lone meeting between the program’s JV teams.

The first win didn’t come easily, however. The Falcon hurler kept the Wolves off-balance by mixing up speeds, while his support crew tagged CHS starter Ben Etzell for three runs in the third.

Etzell was in lock-down mode after that, scattering a couple of meaningless singles and eventually throwing a complete game.

Coupeville finally found its groove at the plate in the top of the fifth, with a walk from Korbin Korzan and a single from Cole Payne setting the table.

Josh Bayne immediately took advantage, lashing an RBI single to right center, then the South Whidbey defense helped the Wolf cause with a couple of key errors.

Unable to field choppers off the bats of Jake Tumblin and Morgan Payne, the Falcons threw the ball away twice, letting in three unearned runs.

Etzell and Aaron Curtin rapped RBI singles in the seventh to top off the Wolf scoring.

While he was happy to get back on the bus with a win, CHS coach Willie Smith can see areas his squad needs to work on as it goes forward.

“This was a good game for us,” Smith said. “Not only for the win over South Whidbey, but because we were able to come back to win it on their home field and with us not really hitting on all cylinders offensively.

“We will definitely need to do a better job of adjusting at the plate,” he added. “But we did a great job of taking advantage of some miscues and capitalized on our speed and some timely hits.”