The Pineapple Ninjas at rest. (Megan Somes photo)
Isabelle Wells enjoys a post-tourney milk shake. (Katy Wells photo)
Coaches (l to r) Mimi Johnson, Katy Wells and Lark Gustafson have led teams to back-to-back district titles.
Tracking down food, but never too busy to stop for a photo op. (Jacque LaRue photos)
Impromptu dance party.
“We’ll be back to see you next year!!”
They’re building a tradition.
Back-to-back District 11 titles. Back-to-back trips to the state tournament.
With softball fever raging at every level in Coupeville, the younger generation is making a statement. They plan to keep the fire burning on the prairie.
And while the season may have ended Sunday for the Central Whidbey Little League 9/10 All-Star softball sluggers — the Pineapple Ninjas dropped a close 14-11 game to East Seattle in Vancouver — the afterglow of the season will last for a long time.
As she prepared to pull her players back out of the swimming pool and head home, Central Whidbey coach Mimi Johnson was justifiably proud.
The Pineapple Ninjas don’t have the huge base of players that the big-city teams draw from, but they have pluck like no one’s business.
“Girls did great!,” Johnson said. “We battled!!”
And guess what, big-city teams?
They’ll be back and they’ll keep getting better and going deeper in these tournaments.
Central Whidbey softball is on the rise, across every age division, across every team.
Little League to high school, they are getting stronger, more confident, and their belief in themselves, as individual players and as a unit, grows with every day, every play.
They go by many names.
The Pineapple Ninjas, the Sizzlin’ Sisters, the Venom, and then, one day, they all become Wolves.
And the howl of success that is sweeping the prairie never stops echoing.
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