Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Baseball’ Category

Hot bats, cool arm!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , on March 31, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Dane Lucero went the distance Friday, tossing a three-hit gem in a 9-1 win at Port Townsend. (John Fisken photo)

Maybe Dane Lucero is the new CJ Smith.

Like the former Wolf ace, Lucero, a Coupeville High School sophomore, adopts an easy-going style on the mound, disguising his emotions beneath a placid exterior.

Add in the fact he’s been virtually untouchable when taking the ball this season, and the comparisons grow.

Friday, Lucero was flawless for much of the game, with especially effective moments at the beginning and end, pitching the Wolves to a 9-1 win at Port Townsend.

The conference victory, coming in Chris Smith’s debut as varsity head coach, lifts Coupeville to 1-1 in Olympic League play, 5-3 overall.

CHS sits in a tie with Chimacum (1-1), a game off of Klahowya (2-0), with seven league clashes left on the schedule.

Port Townsend (0-2) is currently mired in the cellar.

Smith, who moved up from his position as JV coach after Marc Aparicio resigned Thursday due to work conflicts, got stellar stuff from his hurler.

Lucero retired the first nine RedHawk hitters, faced the minimum batters through four innings, and closed the game by striking out the side in the seventh.

He scattered three hits and two walks, was never in trouble, and whiffed six batters total.

“We had solid pitching from Dane,” Smith said. “We played solid, error-free, defense behind him.

“Defensively, Matt Hilborn (SS) and Joey Lippo (2B) were sharp making a number of plays behind Dane. Good, clean baseball game.”

Coupeville gave Lucero plenty to work with, with six players combining to rap out nine hits as the Wolves scored in five of seven innings.

The Wolves plated two in the first, three in the second and another in the third as they built a 6-0 lead.

Another run in the top of the sixth stretched the margin to 7-0, and, after Port Townsend scraped out its only run in the bottom of the inning, CHS added two more in the seventh.

In a game where eight of Coupeville’s nine hits were singles, the biggest blow was an RBI triple off the bat of senior Taylor Consford.

Matt Hilborn, Julian Welling and Consford had two hits apiece, Jake Hoagland, Lucero and Jake Pease also punched singles and Lippo pilfered home off of a double steal.

The Wolves play five of their next six against non-conference foes (facing Chimacum at home April 12), then make their playoff run with six straight league games to close the regular season.

Read Full Post »

Am-Bush-ed!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , on March 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Matt Hilborn, seen here in an earlier game, was a vacuum at short Thursday afternoon. (John Fisken photo)

They held their own.

Playing against a varsity squad Thursday, the Coupeville High School JV baseball team strung together five-plus really solid innings, but fell 6-1 to visiting Bush on the first truly sunny day of the spring sports season.

What stung the Wolves was a brief bit of sustained trouble in the first inning, and a momentary burp at the very end of the game.

Otherwise, take the second through the sixth inning and it was a 1-1 deadlock.

The loss drops the CHS young guns to 1-3 on the season, while Bush, a private school out of Seattle, improves to 4-1.

The game was set up because the Blazers first-year head coach, Greg Conley, played baseball at Sequim High School for Coupeville Athletic Director Willie Smith.

“One of the best players I ever coached,” Smith said. “Great kid, good baseball guy.”

After high school, Conley went on play at Oregon State and was drafted in 1995 by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

While he’s only been in his current job for a short time, you can see the Bush players are learning quickly from their new mentor, and they played with poise and polish.

Or, basically, played a lot like Willie Smith’s own hardball teams, at Sequim and Coupeville, always did.

Conley’s counterpart at CHS, Chris Smith, salted his JV lineup at the top with three varsity players, Matt Hilborn, Joey Lippo and Julian Welling, and that trio combined to collect all five of Coupeville’s hits.

But the Wolves also treated the game as an effective way to give their true JV players solid innings against strong competition, with Chris Smith getting at-bats for 12 different players.

The top of the first was the only poor frame for Coupeville, as Bush used three solid hits and a couple of Wolf miscues on attempted pick-offs to build an early 3-0 lead.

After that, Wolf hurler Jonathan Thurston locked in and was deadly effective for the remainder of his five-inning stint.

He retired 13 of the final 17 hitters he faced, whiffing four and not surrendering a hit after the first inning.

“Once Johnny was able to dial it in, he pitched us a gem,” Chris Smith said. “He really threw a beautiful game.”

Coupeville had a golden opportunity to get right back in the game after Lippo laced a one-out double over the head of a Blazer outfielder in the bottom of the first.

It wasn’t to be, however, as Bush fielders made two nice plays back-to-back to deny Welling and Jake Pease base-knocks.

Down 4-0 after the Blazers added an unearned run in the fourth, the Wolves broke through in the bottom half of the inning.

Hilborn and Lippo started the inning off with consecutive singles, then teamed up on a double steal, largely thanks to nimble base-running by Lippo.

Skidding to a stop halfway to second, he drew the throw to him, giving Hilborn a chance to streak home while he then danced out of the pickle and landed safely at second.

After an infield single from Welling on which he couldn’t move up because of where the ball was hit, Lippo successfully stole third, dipping at the last second to slide under the tag.

Except…

Every single person in the park, including the Bush third-baseman, who slapped his thigh in frustration, saw it that way.

Just not the ump, who caught everyone by surprise by signalling an out.

That took a bit of the wind out of Coupeville’s sails, and the Wolves couldn’t get a sustained rally going again after that.

Bush scraped out a pair of runs in the sixth to pad the final margin.

Other than their first-inning misfires, the Wolves were fairly solid on defense.

Ulrik Wells pulled down a skyscraper of a popup at second, Hilborn was a vacuum at short, Lippo ran down a pair of deep shots to center and Thurston and Welling made nice plays on come-backers to the mound.

Read Full Post »

Wolf baseball flips coaches!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , on March 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Coupeville High School baseball coach Marc Aparicio resigned effective Thursday. (John Fisken photo)

Coaching changes continue at Coupeville High School.

Wolf varsity baseball coach Marc Aparicio has resigned his post, effective immediately, after accepting a new Department of Defense job.

The position requires travel and enough time away from home, especially during baseball season, that it presented substantial scheduling problems.

Aparicio, who also runs the Penn Cove Taproom with brother Mitch, said he greatly enjoyed his time as a coach, but needed to make the decision that was best for his family.

Baseball joins boys basketball, cheer and girls soccer as the fourth CHS program to have a coaching change this school year.

JV coach Chris Smith has been promoted to head coach and will debut in the post Friday against Port Townsend.

He’ll be aided by longtime Wolf assistant coach Mike Etzell, as well as volunteers Aaron Lucero, Josh Welshans and Steve Hilborn.

Aparicio finished 14-15 in a little under a season-and-a-half of helming his alma mater’s hardball program.

The Wolves went 10-12 last season, going 7-2 in Olympic League play to capture the program’s first league title in 25 years.

CHS is 4-3 overall, 0-1 in league play, this year.

Coupeville High School issued the following press release:

Effective on Thursday, Mar. 30th, Marc Aparicio will be stepping down as Head Baseball Coach due to job re-location.

It is difficult being a head coach and not employed by the school district and as Marc’s job situation became such that it would require him to miss time with the baseball program, he made the difficult decision to resign and have his assistants continue coaching, making the transition as seamless and least impactful as possible.

I completely understand and support Marc in his decision as he needs to take care of himself and his family and fully appreciate the difficulty in the decision he had to make.

I’d like to thank Marc and appreciate his time and effort that he made while Head Coach here in Coupeville and wish him nothing but the best.

Willie Smith
Athletic Director

Read Full Post »

But a brief setback!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , on March 29, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Clay Reilly had two hits and two RBIs in Coupeville’s Olympic League opener. (John Fisken photos)

Jake Hoagland takes a cut Wednesday afternoon.

This time they’re going to have to fight from behind.

Last season, the Coupeville High School baseball squad won its first seven league games en route to capturing the program’s first conference title in 25 years.

After falling 7-4 to visiting Klahowya Wednesday, the Wolves will need to write a new script in 2017.

The loss snaps a four-game winning streak for CHS and leaves it 0-1 in Olympic League play, 4-3 overall.

The Wolves sit in a tie with Port Townsend (0-1, 0-3) which it plays Friday in a road game.

Klahowya (2-0, 2-3), the league champs in 2015, are a game up on Chimacum (1-1, 3-2) in the very early going.

Wednesday’s match-up was fairly even in the score-book, with the Eagles holding a slight edge in hits at 11-9.

But while Klahowya didn’t deliver any huge blows, they did consistently chip away at the Wolf pitching staff, scoring in five of seven innings.

After both teams exchanged runs in the first — Hunter Smith singled and came around on an RBI ground-out by Clay Reilly for the Wolves — Klahowya built a 5-1 lead heading into the bottom of the fifth.

Coupeville rallied for three runs to turn things back into a one-run affair, but then stalled out.

Matt Hilborn, Joey Lippo, Reilly and Dane Lucero all delivered singles in the inning, as the Wolves plated all three runs after notching two outs.

For the game, three Wolves — Lucero, Reilly and Kory Score — piled up two hits apiece to pace the offense.

With Smith, their starting pitcher, battling a balky back, Coupeville moved him back to shortstop in the second inning and used Taylor Consford, Julian Welling and Hilborn to finish out the game.

 

To see more photos from this game, pop over to:

http://www.johnsphotos.net/Sports/2017-Coupeville-Baseball/20170329-vs-Klahoway/

Read Full Post »

The bats were blazin’!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , , on March 27, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Kory Score lashed a three-run double Monday, sparking a 12-4 Wolf win. (John Fisken photo)

It’s a good thing they don’t use wood bats in high school baseball.

With the red-hot swings Coupeville High School hitters were laying down Monday, the Wolves would have burnt holes through some old-fashioned ash, hickory or maple.

Seven different CHS sluggers recorded at least one base-knock, including a bases-clearing double from Kory Score, en route to smashing 13 hits in a 12-4 romp over visiting Sultan.

The non-league victory, coming against a former longtime Cascade Conference rival, stretched Coupeville’s win streak to four and brings it to 4-2 on the season.

Riding high, the Wolves kick off defense of their Olympic League crown with a home game against Klahowya Wednesday and a road trip Friday to Port Townsend.

When they do, they’ll still be carrying good memories from smashing the Turks.

Coupeville came out loaded for bear, erupting for 11 runs in the first three innings to quickly derail any Sultan hopes.

After loading the bags in the first on singles by Joey Lippo and Clay Reilly and a walk to Dane Lucero, the Wolves got ruthless.

Ethan Marx eked out a walk to force in the game’s first run, but that was just the prelude.

Score, Coupeville’s lanky first-baseman, who comes equipped with a die-hard fan section led by girlfriend Amanda Neitzel, promptly messed up the Turk pitcher’s day by ripping a resounding double to plate Reilly, pinch-runner Jonathan Thurston and Marx.

Once the runs started coming, they didn’t stop, as CHS piled together four more hits in the second and amassed another three runs.

Hunter Smith started things off with a double, while Jake Hoagland capped things with a two-run single.

Determined to ten-run the Turks, Coupeville ran the score to 11-0 in the bottom of the third, despite starting the inning with two outs and nobody on base.

Smith and Lippo rapped out singles, Reilly walked, Lucero plated two more, and, finally, Hoagland delivered again, this time with an RBI single.

While the offense was wailing away, Lucero was shutting Sultan down in style on the mound.

The sophomore hurler, putting together a second consecutive strong outing, retired the first eight batters and carried a no-hitter into the top of the fourth.

While Lucero hit a brief speed bump in that inning — as Sultan used a pair of singles, two walks and an error to score all four of its runs — he got out of the inning and was virtually untouched after that.

He threw a complete game, scattering four hits and striking out two on 85 pitches.

Coupeville added a final run in the sixth, with Marx reaching on an error, moving up on a single from Nick Etzell, then scoring on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Matt Hilborn.

Lippo led the Wolf hit attack with three singles, while Smith, Reilly, Lucero and Hoagland all chipped in with two base-knocks apiece.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »