Three hits, including two doubles, and stellar defense. Just another day at the office for Hailey Hammer. (John Fisken photo)
Ten Wolves played Tuesday and ten Wolves made major contributions as the Coupeville High School softball squad survived a brief rough start to rebound and drop-kick visiting Concrete 9-7.
The non-conference victory, the first home win for Deanna Rafferty as a high school coach, improved CHS to 2-4 on the season.
And this was, truly, a team win, with batters up and down the lineup delivering huge hits.
Seven Wolves collected at least one hit, while five knocked in runs.
Leading the way was senior Hailey Hammer, who returned to the lineup after missing two games with an injury.
Plugged in at shortstop, she thumped a pair of doubles — one missed being a home run by a matter of inches — and a single, while Monica Vidoni lashed a pair of RBI singles and Jae LeVine pulled off the prettiest RBI bunt seen on the prairie in years.
LeVine, a mighty mite who played like a giant at second, pulled off a nifty double play in which she speared a liner, then nimbly whirled and hit Hammer to double a straying Concrete runner off of second.
Not content to let that, or the time when she backhanded a rocket in the hole, then threw the runner out by a step, stand as her only accomplishments, LeVine let the magic flow from her bat as well.
With two runners on and two runs having crossed the plate in the bottom of the third, Coupeville had rallied from a 3-0 deficit to tie the game at four.
As the dangerously quick Hope Lodell prepared to sprint down the line, LeVine squeezed off a picture-perfect bunt that hit the ground and promptly burrowed all the way to China.
Scampering safely to first as Lodell flew across home, the crafty sophomore thrilled her teammates, the crowd, her little sister Izzy, who ran around handing out sunflower seeds to everyone in sight, and her coach.
“Our first clean bunt of the season, great to see,” said a beaming Rafferty after the game.
The Wolves put together a game-deciding four-run rally in the inning, with Lodell and Vidoni smashing RBI hits before LeVine’s play, and Tiffany Briscoe eking out a bases-loaded walk two batters later.
Up 6-4, Coupeville would never relinquish the lead after that.
Vidoni, swinging the bat like a woman on fire, crunched another RBI single up the middle in the fourth, before Hammer flat-out ran over the catcher to score on an infield hit from LeVine.
Concrete made a brief run in the seventh, pushing two across and getting a runner to third, but the Wolves stranded the tying run at the plate twice.
Wolf hurler Katrina McGranahan punched out a batter on strikes — her fifth K of the afternoon — before Hammer shot to her left to end the game by snatching a line-drive.
Defense like that was on display all afternoon, as the Wolves stayed with the ball, even when they bobbled it, and pulled off several highlight reel plays.
Freshman Heather Nastali twice went deep into the darkest regions of right field to take away hits (“You’re my favorite!!” screamed happy dad Robert), Lodell made a gorgeous catch in straight-away center and Hammer and LeVine were money all day in the middle of the infield.
The best web gem might have come in the fifth, when a Concrete batter blasted a ball back off of McGranahan’s glove.
Reading the play perfectly, Hammer snagged the weird bounce in stride, pivoted and fired in one smooth motion.
A moment later the ball smacked into first baseman Kyla Briscoe’s glove with a pop that could be heard in Mount Vernon.
The stellar all-around play redeemed what, for a moment, looked like a bad start, as the Wolves surrendered three runs in the first.
Bouncing right back in the bottom half of the inning, CHS got RBIs from Hammer and Lodell from a rally started by back-to-back singles from Lauren Rose and Tiffany Briscoe.
From that point on, it was all Wolves, all the time, with McKayla Bailey, largely tethered to the bench as a DH while resting a sore arm, bellowing words of wisdom, encouragement and joy to her teammates.
And, as long as #13 is loud ‘n proud, the whole prairie is rockin’.
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