Coupeville Sports

   Aiden Crimmins comes up firing while playing the outfield Wednesday afternoon. (John Fisken photo)

Josh Welshans got a workout.

The Coupeville High School assistant baseball coach is the team’s scorebook guru, and by the time he was done recording things Wednesday, his fingers might have been just about ready to fall off.

Bashing the ball with glee, the Wolves sent 15 batters to the plate and scored 11 runs against visiting Port Townsend … in just the first inning.

By the time it was done, CHS had polished off the RedHawks 22-0, keeping alive its slim hopes of retaining its Olympic League crown.

Now 4-2 in conference action, 9-7 overall, the Wolves still have an uphill battle, trailing Klahowya (6-0, 8-3) by two with three league games left on the schedule.

The first of those arrives Friday, when Coupeville travels to Chimacum (2-4, 4-6).

Beat the Cowboys for a third time this season and the Wolves clinch at least second-place in the four-team league.

They’ve already nailed down a playoff spot after Wednesday’s win, sitting four games up on Port Townsend (0-6, 0-10).

CHS put the game on ice before all of the fans had settled into their seats, using five hits, four walks and a smattering of RedHawk errors to mount their epic first inning.

The big blows came courtesy Clay Reilly, who thumped a triple, and Jake Hoagland, who smoked a double.

Hunter Smith, Dane Lucero and Matt Hilborn added base-knocks in the first and the rout was on.

The second inning was no better for the beleaguered RedHawk pitching staff, as Coupeville sent another 13 hitters to the plate, with eight of them eventually coming around to stamp yet another run on the (non-working) scoreboard.

Coupeville coach Chris Smith did everything humanly possible to keep the score from ballooning into the stratosphere, using everyone on his bench and going station-to-station for much of the game.

But with everything clicking — offense, defense and pitching — it was hard not to finish with a lopsided final score.

A particular bright spot for Coupeville was seeing Hunter Smith return to the mound.

The junior has been hampered by back problems which curtailed his ability to pitch, but Wednesday he was feeling strong and tossed two strong innings before handing the ball to his bullpen.

Smith had two base-runners but picked one of them off of first, while whiffing three RedHawks.

Lucero retired all six hitters he faced across the third and fourth inning, picking up four more strikeouts, before Jonathan Thurston closed the game.

The slender senior walked the first hitter he faced in the fifth, before closing on an impressive note with three straight K’s.

Coupeville finished with 11 hits, led by Reilly, Hilborn and Smith, who had two apiece. Hoagland added a double, while Lucero, Score, Julian Welling and Nick Etzell collected singles.

Score paced the Wolves with four RBIs on the afternoon.

To see more photos from this game, pop over to:

http://www.johnsphotos.net/Sports/2017-Coupeville-Baseball/20170426-vs-Pt-Townsend/