Kyle Bodamer contemplates whether the umpire might be blind. (Shelli Trumbull photos)
They call Nick Etzell The Vacuum, because he sucks up every baseball hit anywhere near him.
Willie Smith went home and a pitcher’s duel broke out.
The CHS baseball guru took his current team back to Sequim Wednesday, the town he starred in back in his high school days, only to see his old-school Wolves edge his current pack of diamond men 3-0.
The non-conference loss dropped Coupeville to 1-2 on the season.
While CHS suffered its second straight shutout, the Wolves had their shots and hurler Aaron Trumbull did his best to limit the damage coming from the hosts.
All three runs were unearned, the kind of thing that can gnaw at the soul of a coach.
“We are just not making routine fundamental plays and it’s biting us in the hind end,” Smith said.
“Trumbull threw really well for us, keeping them off balance with a mix of off-speed and fastballs, but his defense didn’t do much to help him out,” he added. “Dropped pick-offs, overthrows, a dropped fly ball and failed executions on our first and third defense, led to all three of their runs.
“Other than that, we had a good defensive game!”
Coupeville had several chances to bring runners around, but failed each time.
Aaron Curtin launched a long drive to right in the first, only to see the man ahead of him, CJ Smith, thrown out at the plate.
Later, Josh Bayne singled, stole second and third, and then slowly wilted as the batters behind him finished out the inning with a strikeout and popup.
Things reached the height of disappointment with two blown plays in the late innings.
Kyle Bodamer beat out an infield single, then Cole Payne crushed a double in the fifth to put runners at second and third with one out.
Smith called for a double squeeze, only to have his batter miss the sign, cause a runner to get tagged out, then strike out to end the inning.
The final capper came in the sixth when Bayne smacked a grounder between short and third, only to have the Wolf runner at second make a base-running blunder.
“Our runner decided to run right at him, resulting in an out and a discussion with me on basic running fundamentals,” Smith said.
Still, while the frustrations mounted as the game wore on, the ol’ ball coach could walk away with hope for the remainder of the season.
“The good news is that the mistakes we are making are the result of not focusing and executing things we work on every day, so we can fix those,” Smith said. “Just like I thought, we are getting strong pitching but we need to play solid, fundamental defense and that is, right now, a work in progress, but we will get there and put it all together.”
JV makes its debut:
Coupeville’s young guns got their first action of the season, falling 9-2.
Wolf hurlers Jonathan Thurston and Josh Poole “both threw strikes and there was moments of good defense.”
Joey Lippo and Nick Etzell combined on a nice play up the middle to thwart a Sequim rally, while Cameron Toomey-Stout knocked in Gabe Wynn with the team’s first run.
Poole put in a one-man effort to notch the second run, stealing second and then coming around to score on a passed ball.
“It was good to see them in action and a lot of different players getting to make their high school baseball debut,” Smith said.
