Matt Hilborn pitched strongly Monday, but he and his teammates never had a chance to score, as they were shutout 5-0 by King’s. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
The bats are not responding.
A season-long funk continued Monday for a rebuilding Coupeville High School baseball squad, as the Wolves put only three runners aboard in a 5-0 loss at King’s.
Eight games into the season, CHS, which lost eight players to graduation, has scored eight runs total and absorbed eight losses.
And yet, the Wolves still sit firmly in the middle of a race for a playoff spot, thanks to a wide disparity between the top three and bottom three hardball teams in the North Sound Conference.
Four of six schools advance to bi-districts, and Coupeville (0-4 in league, 0-8 overall) is mired in a tie with Granite Falls (0-4, 2-7) and Sultan (0-4, 0-9) for the #4 slot with 11 conference games left on the schedule for the trio.
Cedar Park Christian (7-0, 9-1), which has advanced to the state semifinals two years running, is a game up on South Whidbey (6-1, 9-1), while King’s (2-2, 3-6) sits in third.
Coupeville gets two more cracks at King’s, with the teams playing Wednesday on Whidbey, then Friday back in Shoreline.
After that comes a three-game series with arch-rival South Whidbey, before the final six games of the regular season pit the Wolves against Sultan and Granite.
Monday’s game stayed close much of the way, with King’s scratching out a run in the bottom of the first, then carrying that 1-0 lead into the fifth.
The Knights tacked on a pair of runs in the bottom half of the inning, then added two more in the sixth, but never really went wild.
Coupeville pitchers Matt Hilborn and Cody Roberts stayed out of major trouble much of the way, combining to whiff nine.
The only problem was the Wolves couldn’t get anything going offensively, with just one hit and two walks stacked up against a season-high 14 K’s at the plate.
Bryce Payne walked in the third, Ulrik Wells stroked a single in the fifth, and Hilborn eked out a free pass in the sixth, but it went nowhere, as none of the Wolves made it successfully to second base.
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