Clay Reilly (left), seen here talking to CHS coach Mike Etzell, had a stellar game Friday. (Shelli Trumbull photo)
Weather? What weather?
While the softball game across the street was called off without a pitch being thrown Friday (but several metric tons of infield dirt being launched into fan’s faces by a wind storm), the Coupeville High School baseball squad played on.
Laughing in the face of the wind and beating the rain by a step or two, the Wolves rode the arm of Aaron Curtin and the bat of Clay Reilly to a 7-0 win over visiting La Conner.
The non-conference victory, the second straight for CHS, brought its record to 4-4 on the season.
With the Wolves baseball diamond notorious for being located in the heart of a wind tunnel on even the balmiest of days, Friday, with its sustained gusts and flying debris, was a test.
Coupeville coach Willie Smith passed, easily, while still finding time to poke me for grabbing the free cookies I got at the aborted softball game and taking my shorts-wearing rear home early.
“Lame, wimpy, least you could have done was bring me a cookie!!!,” Smith chortled.
Not that he didn’t take precautions to make sure the slightest of his players didn’t depart the game early, thanks to the swirling Whidbey hurricane.
“One of the windiest days I’ve ever played on; we were busy trying to find rocks to put in the back pockets of Cameron Toomey-Stout to keep him from traveling to Oz!!”
Once the scrappy Wolf freshman was safely anchored, Coupeville went about beatin’ the crud out of the visitors from the far-less-windy mainland.
Curtin continued his torrid season on the hill, whiffing 15 batters while scattering just two hits and walking one.
“We played error-free defense behind him but he was just dominant once again,” Smith said. “Right now, he is putting together a great run on the mound and the only thing blowing harder than the wind was the ball coming out of his hand!”
Coupeville got most of the offense it would need from Reilly, with the sophomore slugger having a break-out performance.
He bashed three hits, including a double, stole three bases and scored twice.
One of the steals was of the truly electrifying variety, as Coupeville went for a squeeze, only to have the pitch arrive outside, not allowing the Wolf hitter to get good aluminum on the ball.
Never flinching, Reilly slid under the catcher’s tag, pulling off the ultra-rare steal of home.
When he wasn’t tossing high, hard cheese, Curtin swung a big bat as well, cracking a stand-up triple that missed clearing the fence for a home run by a mere three feet.
Figuring they would need to work quickly to get the game in, the Wolves jumped on La Conner for two in the first.
Two walks and two stolen bases set up Carson Risner, who ripped a two-run single up the middle.
The runs kept coming, with two more in the second (Reilly’s swipe of home and an RBI single by Cole Payne that scored Hunter Smith), one in the third (a sac fly by Aaron Trumbull) and two in the fourth capped by another RBI from Payne.
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