Coupeville Sports

Drew Chan celebrates Wade Schaef’s epic two-run blast over the fence.

Like father, like son, as Mike and Ben Etzell rep the red and black.

Hours after surgery to repair a severed tendon in his thumb, first-baseman Brian Norris was there for his team.

Morgan Payne stares down the pitcher.

“If I’m safe, this dirt is delicious!!”

   “Hi, I’m Cole Payne and I’m just gonna go ahead and crank the first pitch I see, if that’s OK.”

It was a beautiful day Friday, full of sun and no wind on the prairie.

And while a late baseball rally wasn’t quite enough to allow the Wolf baseball squad to catch and sweep South Whidbey (the CHS softballers did crush Sultan across the street), unsung heroes like Wade Schaef and Cole Payne made huge plays.

Capturing it all, the myth, the legend, the hardest-working photographer in the biz — Shelli Trumbull.

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         Willie Smith told Wade Schaef to go throw some strikes, so he did. (Shelli Trumbull photos)

Wolf frosh Cole Payne crushed a double in his first varsity at-bat.

It wasn’t the sweep they wanted, but it was a series win.

Despite the best efforts of Cole Payne and Wade Schaef and a furious late rally, the Coupeville High School baseball squad fell 8-5 to visiting South Whidbey Friday.

The loss snapped a four-game winning streak and prevented the Wolves from taking all three games in their battle with their Island rivals.

Still, having won two of three against the Falcons, the only other 1A school to play baseball in the Cascade Conference (King’s is a no-show), Coupeville is guaranteed to be the number one seed out of the league when playoffs start in May.

Now 4-3 overall, 2-3 in Cascade Conference play, the Wolves face a seriously schizophrenic schedule.

Its next six games are against the big boys (Cedarcrest and Archbishop Thomas Murphy are both 6-0 in league play), then the following six games are against teams that have yet to win a game (Granite Falls and Sultan are both 0-7 overall).

Tuning up for the gauntlet, Coupeville staged a four-run rally in the bottom of the sixth Friday, cutting an 8-1 lead back to a contest, but couldn’t keep the momentum going.

They were stung all game by the bat of Ricky Muzzy, who went 4-for-5 and blasted a three-run home run.

The Wolves countered with an epic two-run shot over the outfield fence from Schaef, who also pitched strongly in relief, and big hits from the Payne brothers. Both Morgan and Cole whacked doubles (as did Ben Etzell), with Cole’s pinch-hit RBI two-bagger coming in his first-ever varsity at-bat.

He also had the quote of the day, as related to Wolf coach Willie Smith.

“I’m not going to lie, I was nervous. On a scale of 1-10 I was definitely a 12!,” Cole Payne said.

Schaef drove in a pair, while the Paynes and Aaron Trumbull each chipped in with one apiece. Josh Bayne, Korbin Korzan and Schaef shared pitching duties, with Schaef throwing strikes on 17 of his 24 pitches.

“Wade threw extremely well for us,” Smith said.

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