Coupeville Sports

   Jake Hoagland steps to the plate during Thursday’s playoff game in Tacoma. (Jim Hoagland photos)

   Wolf hurler Matt Hilborn, looking very much like a man who probably just stuffed his pockets full of seeds.

A bump in the road.

One bad inning Thursday brought a momentary pause to the joy ride the Coupeville High School baseball team is enjoying this season.

But it doesn’t have to be fatal.

A momentary lapse or two in the second inning allowed Bellevue Christian to pile up all the runs it would need for a 4-1 win, giving the Vikings (13-6) the district title and a berth to the state tourney.

The playoff loss, coming on a neutral field in Tacoma, snaps Coupeville’s eight-game winning streak. Only the second defeat in the last 14 games for the Wolves, it drops them to 15-5.

But hope still burns brightly.

CHS heads back to Tacoma Saturday to play Charles Wright Academy (11-6) at Curtis High School. First pitch is scheduled for 1 PM.

The Tarriers stayed alive Thursday by eliminating Chimacum 5-0 in a loser-out game.

Coupeville destroyed CWA 10-0 in six innings the last time the two teams faced … which was Tuesday in the opening game of the playoffs.

Recreate that magic Saturday and the Wolf baseball program returns to state for the first time since 2014.

CHS had momentum coming in to the district title game and jumped on BC for a run in the top of the first.

Playing as the visiting team, the Wolves put lead-off hitter Matt Hilborn on board thanks to a single, then brought him around to score three batters later.

Julian Welling, the human RBI machine, plunked a run-scoring base-knock and everything looked like it was clicking for Coupeville.

Unfortunately, those two early hits were almost everything CHS got off of BC pitcher Daniel Teramato.

Once he escaped the first inning, the Viking hurler limited the Wolves to just two more hits the rest of the way, using just 71 pitches to blitz through seven innings.

And it was Teramato who delivered the game’s defining offensive moment as well, cracking a two-run double to cap a four-run explosion in the bottom of the second.

Bellevue mixed in a couple of timely hits with a walk or two and a key Coupeville error, then its offense also went fairly dry the rest of the way.

Wolf junior pitcher Matt Hilborn shut down the bleeding in the second by getting all three outs via whiffs, half of his six K’s on the day.

From that point until he handed the ball to reliever Dane Lucero late in the bottom of the sixth, Hilborn limited the Vikings to just two more hits.

The problem is, after playing flawless ball in every aspect of the game in their district playoff opener, the Wolves were not quite perfect against BC.

Coupeville racked up four errors in the field, four more than it committed against Charles Wright, and left what few base-runners it had hanging out to dry.

The Wolves got a runner aboard in the third on an error, only to see him erased in a double play.

After that, CHS left a man on base in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings.

The hardest to take came in the fifth, after Jake Pease launched a lead-off double to spark hopes of a Wolf comeback.

Instead, he was taken down on his way in to third on a fielder’s choice, and then the next two batters hit the ball straight at fielders for fly outs.

Coupeville only lost the hit parade battle 5-4, with Hilborn, Welling, Hunter Smith and Pease having base-knocks, but Teramato closed strongly, retiring eight of the final nine Wolf hitters.