Coupeville Sports

   Mikayla Elfrank crushed an epic double and made several sparkling defensive plays at short Tuesday. (John Fisken photo)

It’s a learning process.

Fielding a team without a single senior, with almost all of its key players freshmen or sophomores, the Coupeville High School softball squad is still very much a work in progress.

The early days of the season were a heady time, as the rally caps came out often en route to a 6-1 start.

Now, after taking a 7-1 loss at home to Klahowya Tuesday, the team’s third straight defeat, the Wolves are experiencing the bumps in the road.

The loss dropped Coupeville to 6-4 overall, 1-2 in league play and the Wolves slid into third-place in the 1A Olympic League standings.

Defending champ Chimacum (2-0, 6-4) sits on top, with Klahowya (1-0, 6-4) and Port Townsend (0-2, 0-6) sandwiched around Coupeville.

The Wolves, though, will have a strong opportunity to get back to their winnings ways, as they travel to Port Townsend Thursday, where they will try and add to the RedHawks two-year, 29-game losing streak.

If nothing else, the hits should come easier than they did Tuesday.

Klahowya hurler Amber Bumbalough, who was named the league MVP as a freshman, is continuing to roll in her second season of high school ball, and she was scorching as usual.

Coupeville, a fairly strong-hitting team, couldn’t get a base knock off of her until the fifth inning, when Tiffany Briscoe whacked a single to left.

Coming on the heels of a walk to Mikayla Elfrank, that gave the Wolves two on with nobody out, and a familiar pattern seemed to be emerging.

Fall behind early — in this case 4-0, largely on the basis of a three-run triple — then rally right back into the game.

Only, on this day, an alert Klahowya coach sprang from the dugout and got the hit negated on a technicality.

When Briscoe had entered the game, replacing Tamika Nastali in the second inning, CHS coach Kevin McGranahan had forgotten to declare the change to the ump.

So, instead of a single, Coupeville was given an out.

“That’s on me, not Tiffany,” McGranahan said. “She did a great job up there, I just made a mistake. My mistake all the way.”

Coupeville finally got an official hit (or two) off Bumbalough in the sixth, when Lauren Rose lashed a lead-off liner to center field, followed by a gorgeous bunt single off of the bat of Hope Lodell.

“The Surgeon” dropped the ball neatly in front of and to the side of the Klahowya third-baseman, then burned down the base path to beat the throw by half a step.

The Wolves netted their lone run in the inning, with Rose scampering home on a fielder’s choice ground-out by Sarah Wright, but the rally died too quickly for the local fan’s liking.

Klahowya put the game away for good in the seventh, with an RBI triple, followed by a two-run dinger that cleared the fence.

With the game slipping away, Elfrank refused to go down easy.

Capping a solid all-around game, the sophomore sensation crushed a lead-off double in the seventh, pounding the ball about a foot short of a home-run.

Her big blow, combined with several nifty web gems at short, caught her coach’s eye.

“Mikayla played strongly,” McGranahan said. “She was a rock for us; always nice to see.”