Coupeville Sports

Madeline Roberts is not to be trifled with. (John Fisken photo)

Well, it’s a race. Sort of…

Despite doing everything possible to give it away, the Coupeville High School softball squad is still clinging to the 1A/2A Cascade Conference’s #1 playoff seed for 1A schools.

Even after committing eight errors en route to getting bounced 10-0 at Lakewood Monday in the next-to-last regular season game.

The Wolves, now 4-14 overall, 3-14 in league play, are tied with South Whidbey, which lost its last game by forfeit after its only pitcher was injured in a play at the plate.

Coupeville, which owns the tiebreaker, having taken two of three from South Whidbey, closes the season in Granite Falls Tuesday, playing a 16-2 squad.

The Falcons face Archbishop Thomas Murphy … if they found a pitcher.

If the Wolves want to play much beyond Tuesday — they’re guaranteed at least two playoff games — they’ll need to dig down and come up with a better effort than what they displayed against Lakewood.

With rare exception, Coupeville was flat, and flat-out bad.

Eight errors in the field, a pair of Lakewood home runs, with the final one a shot to center that invoked the 10-run mercy rule in the sixth, and an anemic offense all conspired to deflate any Wolf hopes.

CHS never got a runner past second, accumulating just singles from Hailey Hammer, Madeline Strasburg and Breeanna Messner. All three base knocks came in different innings.

The host Cougars answered with eleven hits, including four of the extra-base variety. Terah Barrio and Jennaka Larson both launched balls over the outfield fence for Lakewood.

Even in the midst of what was likely its worst game of the season, Coupeville did find one bright spot.

With two runners on and one out, senior shortstop Madeline Roberts speared a liner and tagged the runner, who had broken from the bag, for a wham-bam double play to end an inning.

She actually went for the triple play, trying to nab the runner coming off of first as well, before realizing she already had three outs in the inning.

While that was the rare ray of sun on a gloomy day, tomorrow is always another day. At least that’s CHS coach David King’s mindset.

“The great thing is, we get to board the bus tomorrow and see if we can take out our aggression at Granite Falls.”