Mikayla Elfrank, seen here during practice, scored twice in her first game as a Wolf. (John Fisken photos)
CHS freshman Sarah Wright had an impressive debut Saturday, crunching a triple and a single while hitting into a deadly wind.
One game in and Sarah Wright already has this whole high school softball thing down pat.
Making a smashing debut, the Coupeville High School freshman catcher whacked both of her team’s hits Saturday, sparking the scrappy, small-ball-lovin’ Wolves to a 4-1 Opening Day win over visiting South Whidbey.
Overcoming a steady wind that ripped in from center field, a strikeout-happy opposing hurler and an umpire who made some calls that would indicate he might have hit the beer tent at Mussel Fest before taking the field, CHS gave new coach Kevin McGranahan a victory in his debut.
Fielding a roster without a single senior, Coupeville’s starting lineup featured two freshmen and five sophomores.
Reunited with McGranahan, who many of the current Wolves played for as little league players, they looked loose, happy and confident, a marked change from last year.
Even when they had difficulty early with Falcon pitcher Mackenzee Collins, who whiffed eight in the first three innings en route to 16 K’s on the day, Coupeville’s core never crumbled.
“The girls stayed in the game and didn’t hang their heads, even when we were down,” Kevin McGranahan said. “They’re not a team that is ever going to quit on you, and they never did.”
With Collins virtually untouchable in the early going, giving up just a walk to fellow hurler Katrina McGranahan her first time through the Wolf lineup, South Whidbey didn’t need much to take control.
The Falcons got on the scoreboard first in the top of the third, when they staged an inadvertent rally.
Katrina McGranahan had torched eight of the first nine South Whidbey hitters she faced, but then had a brief bout of wildness and walked the bags full with two outs.
Perhaps rattled just a bit, a pitch got away from her, skipped on the ground and plunked a Falcon hitter who made no effort to get out of the way.
To the disbelieving howls of Coupeville’s large (and very cold) fan base, the ump awarded South Whidbey first base, forcing home a run.
As the specter of an agonizing 1-0 loss on a questionable, at best, call, hung in the air, the Wolves simply shrugged their shoulders and went to work.
From that point on, Coupeville’s defense was superb behind their mound warrior, and Katrina McGranahan responded with precision pitches, eventually ringing up 12 strikeouts of her own.
Playing error-less ball, with middle infielders Jae LeVine and Mikayla Elfrank both pulling off superb plays on tricky balls, the Wolves set themselves up to retake the lead, and immediately responded.
And they did it with panache, using small ball, gutty base-running and a go-go style to rattle the Falcons.
Coupeville broke through in the bottom of the fourth, putting two across (though it should have been three).
Elfrank, a former Falcon playing her first game in the red and black, led off with a walk, then scampered to third, taking advantage of tentative play from South Whidbey’s catcher.
She came around to knot things up a play later, on another botched play by the Falcons, before Wright finally recorded Coupeville’s first hit of the season.
It was a ferociously-hit single which took off like a rocket, hit an air pocket, spun in place in mid-air, then plopped at the edge of the infield as three infielders went in different directions.
On the edge of falling apart, the Falcons lost the lead on a successful steal of home by Katrina McGranahan, but were saved (for a moment) when Wright was called out on a bang-bang play at home.
This despite clearly sliding under the catcher’s glove, beating the throw by what felt like a good five or six seconds.
Clinging to a 2-1 lead, instead of continuing to rack up runs, the Wolves just kept at it, seemingly oblivious to any wailing from their fan section.
Thoroughly in command when in the field, Coupeville tacked on two more runs in the sixth.
Elfrank reached base when the Falcon catcher dropped a third strike, then whipped the ball off the runner’s back while scrambling to recover.
Though sporting a potential new bruise, the Wolf sophomore boldly took second and third on consecutive pitches before charging home on yet another passed ball.
Wright capped things with the one truly magnificent hit of the afternoon.
With Katrina McGranahan perched on base, the frosh phenom mashed a ball that shot down the first base line, low enough to evade the slicing wind.
Curving viciously, Wright’s shot ripped a chunk out of the outfield grass in fair territory, then shot to the right and headed for the shrubbery as a Falcon vainly tried to snag it.
By the time the ball came back in, Wright had hauled tail into third with the first, but undoubtedly far from the last, triple of her prep career.
The three-bagger earned plenty of hooting and hollering from the bleachers, where the player Wright most resembles in terms of game-changing power, former CHS slugger Hailey Hammer, was camped out.
It was the perfect cap to an auspicious start for a young, talented squad whose future is as bright as the sun that finally broke out, in typical Whidbey fashion, just when it was time for fans to go home.
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