Coupeville Sports

Wolf slugger McKayla Bailey, seen here in an earlier season game, had two hits Monday. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

There are days … days you’d like to forget.

Monday was one of those days for Coupeville High School softball coach David King.

“As a team we did not have the focus needed to come and compete today,” King said. “We started our warm-ups with one player not having cleats, another didn’t have her glove. Then while warming up a player got hit in the forehead on a thrown ball.

“We are making the same mistakes at this point in the season that we made at the beginning of the year,” he added. “The other teams are out-hustling us. We are playing hard and the effort is there, we just have a mental lapse at times and it comes back to hurt us.”

Which is a nice way of getting around to the fact the Wolves were soundly thrashed by the worst team in the league, falling 7-1 at South Whidbey. The sixth consecutive loss for Coupeville, it dropped them to 4-10 overall, 3-10 in league play.

The Wolves actually jumped out to a 1-0 lead, but couldn’t hold it.

After a Bessie Walstad walk, McKayla Bailey smashed a single off the pitcher’s knee and Madeline Strasburg plated Walstad with a single to right. But then the rally died there and was never re-lit.

Five runs in the bottom of the third, as the Falcons sent 10 hitters to the plate, doomed Coupeville. The big turning point was a two-run home run off the bat of Mckenzie Hezel.

The Wolves were only out-hit eight to five, with Hailey Hammer bopping a double and Bailey collecting two base knocks, but they stranded eight runners and whiffed 11 times.

Another Coupeville player who put good “wood” on the ball every time at the plate Monday was pitcher/shortstop Maria Rockwell.

She smacked a single and just missed a second one when she hit a ball so hard, it got to the outfielder quick enough to nab her at first by half a step. Which is not easy to do with Rockwell blazing down the base path.

“The past week her approach has improved at the plate and she is starting to square up the ball more and hitting it with more authority,” King said.

Coupeville will get a chance to break its slide with a home game Wednesday against first-place Cedarcrest, before hitting the road for a doubleheader at Archbishop Thomas Murphy Friday.

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McKayla Bailey hit the ball so far she had to drive to find where it landed.

“Fear the bat of Turtle Shell!!” (John Fisken photo)

It took them five tries, but the Wolves finally got to Cedarcrest.

After a series of rain-outs and scheduling blunders by their hosts, the Coupeville High School softball players and coaches could be forgiven for thinking they would never actually play in Duvall this season.

But their dreams came true Wednesday — at least partially — when they faced off with the top team in the Cascade Conference.

And while the results weren’t quite what they wanted, as they were swept 12-4 and 9-2 in a twinbill, there were a ton of positives, including a thunderous home run from McKayla Bailey, a sparkling catch from Haley Sherman and four-hit afternoons for Breeanna Messner and Bessie Walstad.

Now 4-9 as they prepare for a road game next Monday at South Whidbey, a team they have beaten twice this season, the Wolves got some pop back in their bats that had been missing the past two games.

“We played better in the first game than we did in the Sultan and Lakewood games,” said Wolf coach David King. “And defensively, even better in the second game than we did in the first game of the doubleheader.”

Facing a ferocious offense, Wolf hurlers Bailey and Maria Rockwell held their own.

“Both McKayla and Maria pitched strong games. They used the whole strike zone and only had a few pitches that really hurt them,” King said. “Cedarcrest is a very good hitting team from top to bottom.”

Coupeville actually led 4-3 in the first game, and trailed by just two runs entering the bottom of the sixth, where a eight-hit, six-run explosion doomed its chances.

The Wolves grabbed all four of their runs in the second. Sherman and Sydney Aparicio each collected an RBI single before Madeline Roberts, who had put in extensive hitting practice long after everyone had gone home after her last game, whacked a two-run single.

Wanting to kick-start his team before game two, King shuffled the lineup, moving Messner up to the two hole and dropping his big bopper, Bailey, to sixth, where she could more readily swing away.

Both moves worked splendidly, as Messner, a surgeon with the bat who lays down skillfully-placed bunts that dig their way to China, put together a 4-for-4 performance at the plate. Bailey opted for the all-at-once method, launching her second home run of the season.

While Bailey was hammering the long ball, Sherman was taking them away, robbing a potential home run with a gorgeous catch right at the fence in left field.

On a day when nine Wolves collected at least one hit, and the team collected 18 base knocks total, Coupeville went down fighting. It loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh on singles by Roberts, Messner and Hailey Hammer, but saw the rally die on a line-out to right center.

With six games left in the regular season, including one more against Cedarcrest, King sees a team that is close to fully jelling and making a run.

“After our talk between games about our defensive effort, the whole team picked it up and played hard and we made plays we didn’t in the first game,” he said. “We did see improvement in both games with our approach at the plate and we are moving in the right direction.”

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     Madeline Roberts, proving she can hit with her eyes shut in a earlier game, delivered one of Coupeville’s three hits Tuesday. (John Fisken photo)

It wasn’t a bad game.

The final score, 11-0 in favor of visiting Lakewood Tuesday, sounds far worse than it was.

Toss out a mental error or two and one huge two-run home run over the center field fence, and there were some bright spots for the Coupeville High School softball squad.

Maria Rockwell waged an epic, 14-pitch battle with a Cougar hitter in the first inning that was a thing of beauty. Neither combatant would give an inch, until the Wolf hurler ultimately got the better of her foe.

Combined with a web gem by Chevy Reyes, who backpedaled into the outfield from short to snare a towering pop-up, Rockwell’s grit kept Lakewood at bay in the early going.

Ultimately, though, the Cougars relentless running got the better of Coupeville.

Too many singles turned into more, as Lakewood routinely took an extra base at every opportunity and then the Wolves compounded matters by trying to hurry to combat Lakewood’s quickness and dropped several balls.

Rattled by the small ball, things came fully unglued when Lakewood turned on their long ball hitting as well, with Cougar pitcher Hailey Malakowski crushing a moon shot over the center field wall to go with her two doubles.

The Cougars added another pair of two-baggers and got a triple from Maddie Holmes before they were done.

After a hit from their opening batter — Madeline Roberts slapped a shot over the shortstop’s head — Coupeville’s bats went quiet until Sydney Aparicio lined a frozen rope into right center in the fifth inning.

The Wolves actually got stronger in the late going, following Aparicio’s hit with a booming double off the bat of McKayla Bailey to open the sixth.

Malakowski refused to bend, however, much to the delight of the world’s loudest bench, retiring the final three batters.

The final out wasn’t easy, though, as Bessie Walstad crushed the ball to center field, only to have a Cougar outfielder make a gorgeous sliding catch to end things.

While the Wolves, now 4-7 heading into a Wednesday doubleheader at Cedarcrest, have hit a rough patch at the plate the last two games, CHS coach David King continues to see improvement.

“The girls have not given up and continue to work hard,” King said. “In our last at-bat, both McKayla and Bessie made the necessary adjustment at the plate. The results were good and Sydney’s hit could be placed in with going with the pitch and staying back on the ball as well.

“We will continue to work and recognize what adjustments we need to make on defense and work on discipline with our at bats,” he added. “We need to think right side and up the middle instead of trying to pull every pitch.”

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