Coupeville Sports

   Taylor Consford ripped a pair of hits Friday as Coupeville’s 17U baseball squad won its tourney opener. (John Fisken photo)

One was a beauty, one was a beast.

Playing back-to-back games Friday morning at the 3rd annual Battle of the Bats tournament at Curtis High School, Coupeville’s 17U baseball squad found wildly different results.

In the opener, the Wolves controlled things from the first batter and strolled to a 9-2 win over the Swing Center Shockers.

Ten minutes after that victory, CHS was back on the same diamond, but this time, everything went terribly, horribly wrong.

A mere three innings later, the Wolves staggered off the field, having been thrashed 15-0 by Honda Baseball in a game called early thanks to tournament mercy rules.

After the split in pool play, Coupeville moves to bracket action Saturday.

The final tournament of the summer season for the Wolves, Battle of the Bats features 25 teams in the 16/17 division and another 13 squads squaring off in the 15U flight.

Big win:

Four runs in the bottom of the first staked CHS hurler Jonathan Thurston to a big early lead, and he responded, carrying a shutout into the fifth inning.

The top of the fourth was his moment in the sun, as the lanky hurler gunned down three straight Shocker hitters.

Nick Etzell came on in relief in the fifth and closed out the game emphatically for Thurston.

At the plate, everything worked for Coupeville.

The Wolves picked up three hits in the first — a double from Taylor Consford and singles by Joey Lippo and Jake Hoagland — and mixed those in with a bevy of walks, many of the “batter getting plunked” variety.

CHS tacked on another three runs in the second, again getting a trio of base-knocks (this time singles from Matt Hilborn, Consford and Dane Lucero), before adding a single run in both the fourth and sixth.

Both of those scores came courtesy of bases-loaded walks, with Austin Boesch and Kyle Rockwell picking up RBIs as they strolled to first with a free pass.

Thomas Anderson, one of three Oak Harbor players (along with Boesch and Donny Kloewer) tagging along with Coupeville for this tourney, reached base all four times he came to the plate in game one.

A well-hit single and three walks made Anderson a frequent visitor to first base.

Big loss:

Coupeville, which got roughed up to the tune of three runs in the first, five in the second and seven more in the third, had its shots on offense, but couldn’t capitalize.

The Wolves loaded the bases in both the first and second inning, packaging four walks and singles from Consford and Kloewer.

It wasn’t to be, though, as Honda baseball dodged a bullet both times, getting inning-ending ground-outs to strand all three runners.