Coupeville senior Joey Lippo had two hits Monday, including a two-run single during a seven-run rally. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Two different types of foes, two different kinds of results.
When Coupeville has faced fellow 1A teams this season, they’ve blasted them.
And, when the team in the other dugout has hailed from a large 2A school, the Wolves have fought until the final batter, but taken the narrowest of defeats.
Monday it was a big-school rival, Bremerton, and Coupeville couldn’t hold on to a five-run lead, falling 9-8 on the road.
“Another tough loss in a one-run game. Again another opportunity to work on mental toughness and our resilience as a team,” said Coupeville coach Chris Smith. “We are not defined by our losses but in the manner in which we played and what we learned from it.
“We played well as a team and fairly error free,” he added. “Unfortunately, we just stranded more runners on the bases then they did.”
The non-conference loss drops the Wolves to 2-2 on the season, heading into another match-up with a 2A school, North Mason, this Friday at home.
Five of Coupeville’s 20 regular-season games will be against 2A schools, and while that may put a ding in its win-loss record, playing against bigger schools could help the Wolves grow as a team.
CHS has shown resiliency against their big-school rivals, and Monday was a prime example of that.
Trailing 2-0 headed to the top of the fourth, the Wolves must have found the magic elixir to rub on their bats, because they started smoking.
Raking eight hits in the inning, including a pair of singles from Jake Pease, Coupeville exploded for seven runs, forcing Bremerton to call on its bullpen.
The big blows were an RBI double from Kyle Rockwell and a two-run single off the bat of Joey Lippo, but everyone in the lineup was dialed in.
Jake Hoagland started things with a base-knock, with Gavin Knoblich, Matt Hilborn and Dane Lucero also connecting for a hit in the inning.
The share-and-share alike philosophy carried over to the bench as well, with Jacob Zettle coming in to pinch-run and promptly scoring.
Bremerton wasn’t going away though, chipping away for three runs of its own in the bottom half of the inning to cut the lead back down to 7-5.
While the Wolves added a solitary run in the fifth, with Nick Etzell walking and coming around to score on a grounder by Hilborn, BHS was now in full come-back mode.
Four runs in the bottom of the fifth reclaimed the lead for the host team, and, after that, Bremerton’s bullpen closed out the game strongly.
Coupeville swung the bats well in the loss, with all nine starters recording a hit.
Pease led the way with three singles, Lippo added two base-knocks, and Hilborn, Hunter Smith, Hoagland, Rockwell, Knoblich, Etzell and Lucero joined the hit parade.
Smith was a force on defense as well, robbing a Bremerton hitter with a nice diving catch on a liner back up the middle.
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