Hawthorne Wolfe had Coupeville’s lone hit Friday in a season-closing 3-2 playoff loss. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
Friday Harbor has a flair for the dramatic.
The Wolverines won two of three baseball games this season against Coupeville, with both victories coming in the bottom of the seventh and final inning.
The second of those losses — a 3-2 defeat on a neutral field in La Conner Friday afternoon — will likely sting the longest for CHS.
That’s largely because it ends Coupeville’s season a game shy of advancing to the state tournament and sends a strong pack of Wolf seniors to the exit.
CHS won the regular-season Northwest 2B/1B League title, finishing 11-1 to Friday Harbor’s 10-1 mark, with Mother Nature preventing the Wolverines from playing a final game against Orcas Island.
But, come playoff time, when the 2B schools split from the 1B, seeding is determined only by games against other 2B league schools.
Coupeville and Friday Harbor each swept a pair of games from La Conner, and split their season series, forcing a tiebreaker game to determine who would get District 1’s lone berth to the 16-team 2B state tourney.
The Wolves, who finish 13-7, were seeking their first trip to the big dance since 2014, but it wasn’t to be.
Friday Harbor, which sits at 15-2 overall after the win, begins single elimination play May 21.
Call Friday’s game what you will — a play-in game, a postseason thriller, the rubber match in a three-game royal rumble — it was decided by a hit.
In a game in which very few base-knocks were recorded.
Friday Harbor finished with just a pair of doubles, but the second one was a killer.
Meanwhile, CHS senior Hawthorne Wolfe led off the game by lacing a single, before Coupeville went 28 at-bats without registering another hit on the day.
The teams did combine to eke out 12 walks, and a handful of errors kept things interesting all the way until the end.
That final flourish came in the bottom of the seventh, with Friday Harbor’s Connor Haines drawing a one-out walk, then skittering to second on a groundout.
Freshman Graham Learing, having taken two quick strikes to begin his at-bat, beat the odds, crunching a liner to left which found daylight and dropped in for his team’s first hit since the third inning.
Running full-tilt, Haines crashed home, sending the Wolverines into celebration mode as they punched their ticket to state.
For Coupeville, which was trying to send a second-straight boys team to the tourney after basketball made the trip to Eastern Washington, it ended a frustrating finale.
The Wolves, even with just the one hit, put runners on base in five of seven innings, and led 2-0 all the way until the bottom of the fifth.
While Hawk didn’t come around to score after his opening single, Coupeville finally broke a scoreless tie with a run in the top of the fourth, then another the very next frame.
The game’s first run came courtesy Scott Hilborn, who walked, stole two bases, then tapped home after a balk.
Scott Hilborn had a strong junior season, and will be back for more.
But, while Coupeville picked up three other walks in the inning, with Xavier Murdy, Sage Sharp, and 8th grader Chase Anderson showing great patience, there was no big run-fest to be had.
Friday Harbor pitcher Nathan Posenjak, who went the distance, gave up another run in the fifth — with Jonathan Valenzuela walking and coming around to score on a wild pitch — but escaped each time.
Wolfe and Hilborn, who teamed up to whiff eight batters, matched their rival hurler, but Friday Harbor finally got on the board in the bottom of the fifth.
A pair of walks and two errors allowed the Wolverines to knot the game up at 2-2 and set the stage for a dramatic ending.
Coupeville got a runner to second in the sixth, with Cody Roberts reaching on an error, but was ultimately denied, then went down 1-2-3 in the top of the seventh.
The game marked the end of the road for CHS seniors Murdy, Roberts, Cole Hutchinson, Sharp, and Wolfe.
Xavier Murdy, class to the end.
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