Jonathan Valenzuela collected a team-high eight hits Tuesday, as Coupeville swept a doubleheader from Orcas Island. (Photos by Morgan White)
Scoring was not an issue.
Pounding the ball to all fields Tuesday, the Coupeville High School baseball team threw down 39 hits and 36 runs, rolling to a doubleheader sweep on Orcas Island.
After collecting 16-8 and 20-1 wins, the Wolves sit at a tidy 5-2 on the season.
Now, the Coupeville bashers get to cool their collective heels for a bit, not playing again until the home finale next Tuesday, March 30.
That will be Senior Night for the lone Wolf 12th grader, Daniel Olson. Then he and his teammates wrap their pandemic-shortened season with three road games.
The trip to Orcas Tuesday was a long run, and even with the second game mercy-ruled after five innings, the teams raced rapidly-encroaching darkness to finish things.
But they did, sending CHS coach Will Thayer and his men back to the ferry with an extra spring in their step.
Xavier Murdy had a pair of doubles during a five-hit afternoon.
How the day played out:
Game 1:
Coupeville fell behind early, but never flinched, collecting 14 hits en route to scoring in five of seven innings.
The heart of the order was on fire, with the 2-3-4-5 hitters combining to account for all but one of those base-knocks.
The biggest bats in the opener were swung by Scott Hilborn and Sage Sharp, who each rapped out four hits apiece, with Hilborn crushing a triple.
Sharp, who reached base all five times he went to the plate in the opener, also came around to score all five times, while John Valenzuela added two doubles and a single, scoring three times.
Daniel Olson spanked a pair of singles, Xavier Murdy rounded out the hit attack with a one-bagger of his own, with Hawthorne Wolfe (3), starting pitcher Cody Roberts (2), Hilborn (2), and freshman Cole White (1) combining to tap home multiple times.
Coupeville put up three runs in the first, a single score in the third, then closed with a 3-6-3 tally across the fifth, sixth, and seventh innings.
While offense carried the day, there was a defensive gem, as well.
Peyton Caveness, busting his tail in right field, made a fairly-spectacular running, diving catch to blunt an Orcas rally, even earning some appreciative oohs and ahs from the rival fans.
Game 2:
Every ball Orcas threw, Coupeville blasted right back.
Or at least it probably seemed that way, with nine different Wolf hitters collecting a base-knock, and nine of Coupeville’s 25 hits being of the extra-base variety.
Wolfe and Valenzuela had five hits each, with the former bombing a trio of two-baggers and the latter settling for a pair of doubles.
Olson, who got the win on the mound, had a long triple, and might have gone for the inside the park homerun if the score wasn’t so lopsided.
Meanwhile, Murdy (2) and Hilborn (1) teamed up for three doubles, with young guns Nick Guay and Caveness adding base-knocks as CHS ran up a 2-1-5-5-7 run tally across five innings.
Also seeing playing time for Coupeville were Miles Davidson and Andrew Williams, as Thayer shuffled his lineup for maximum appeal.
On the day, Valenzuela led the boomin’ bats, registering eight hits across two games, while Olson and Hilborn had six each.
Also putting some good “wood” on the ball were heavy hitters Wolfe (5), Murdy (5), Sharp (5), Roberts (2), Guay (1), and Caveness (1).
Cody Roberts and Co. did this a lot Tuesday, scoring 36 runs.
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