Covid turned four seasons of high school softball into 2.5 for Izzy Wells, but she led Coupeville to a 43-13 record during that time. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
What a long, strange trip it’s been.
Izzy Wells and Audrianna Shaw will be remembered as elite softball players, two of the best to ever wear a Coupeville High School uniform.
Their prep careers ended Saturday at Fort Borst Park in Centralia, as the Wolves fell 15-4 to Toledo in a winner-to-state, loser-out game.
But that final score is a bit deceptive, as the game wasn’t a blow-out until the very end, when the Riverhawks busted open a 5-4 thriller with 10 runs across the final three innings.
Coupeville finishes 16-3, while Toledo carries a 16-9 record as it preps for a trip to the 12-team 2B state tourney in Yakima.
For Wells and Shaw, the state tourney is where their high school diamond journey really got going.
As freshmen, the duo was part of a 2019 Wolf squad which played three games in one day at the 1A big dance, a run which included eliminating highly ranked Deer Park.
But then the world, and their softball dreams, took a major hit, with a pandemic shutting down school sports.
Wells and Shaw lost their entire sophomore season, before playing a chopped-down, 12-game junior campaign while wearing masks and having no chance for a postseason.
Jump forward to their senior year, and the duo led Coupeville to another league title, only to be stung once again by the vagaries of life.
CHS played the waiting game during an 18-day gap between the regular-season finale and Saturday’s playoff game.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association dictates you have to have 50 schools playing a sport for a 16-team state tourney, and 2B softball only had 49 this spring.
So, welcome to a 12-team championship event.
Welcome to Coupeville’s home, District 1, being told its champ would not automatically qualify for the big dance, as previously promised.
And welcome to the Wolves being forced to sit 18 days between games, travel 138 miles, then play a sudden-death contest against District 4’s #5 team for that elusive ticket to state.
A Toledo squad which was playing its third game of the day and sixth during the five-day District 4 tourney.
Which could have meant the Riverhawks would be tired. Or, more likely, that they would be in a groove.
Choose the latter, as Toledo, which began the season 4-6, won for the twelfth time in its last 15 games.
The Riverhawks won four of six at the D4 tourney, outscoring foes 75-23 and losing only to Forks and Pe Ell-Willapa Valley, which are also state bound.
In the early going, it looked like Coupeville would add another loss to Toledo’s record, as the Wolves jumped out to a 4-0 lead after two innings of play.
After Izzy Wells, prowling the pitcher’s circle, ended the top of the first with an emphatic strikeout, CHS pushed three runs across in the bottom of the frame.
Walks to Shaw, Gwen Gustafson, and Izzy Wells set the table, with freshmen Mia Farris and Savina Wells both coming up with well-placed singles to key the early onslaught.
Savina Wells is one of four freshmen who started this season for a 16-3 CHS diamond crew.
A third Wolf fab frosh, shortstop Taylor Brotemarkle, walked to open the second inning, before coming around to score on an RBI single from Farris.
Up 4-0, things were looking good, but, while it didn’t yet know it, Coupeville wouldn’t score again this season after Brotemarkle slapped home.
The Wolves put runners on base in every inning, finishing the day with seven hits and eight walks, but couldn’t sustain any late rallies.
That gave Toledo time to get its own bats poppin’, with the Riverhawks cutting the deficit to 4-3 in the third, before surging ahead 5-4 through four frames.
Two more tallies in the fifth stretched the lead to 7-4, with a pair of four-run innings in Toledo’s final at-bats making the score far more lopsided than expected.
“They hit the ball all over the field,” said Coupeville coach Kevin McGranahan. “Our girls played well, but the hits were all solid and well-placed.”
Even as the season wound down, the Wolves continued to scrap for every out, something which pleased their coach.
“The girls were focused and ready to play and left it all on the field,” McGranahan said.
Izzy Wells and Audrianna Shaw, four-year varsity players who got to actually play 2.5 years, depart, with fellow seniors Mckenna Somes and Violette Huegerich also set to graduate.
But Coupeville is built for the future.
Four of Saturday’s starters — Farris, Brotemarkle, Madison McMillan, and Savina Wells — are freshmen, while a fifth — leftfielder Teagan Calkins — is only an 8th grader.
Saturday stats:
Taylor Brotemarkle — 1 walk
Mia Farris — 2 singles
Gwen Gustafson — 2 walks
Allie Lucero — 2 walks
Maya Lucero — 1 walk
Madison McMillan — 1 single
Audrianna Shaw — 2 singles, 1 walk
Izzy Wells — 1 walk
Savina Wells — 2 singles
Mia Farris is ready to sprint into even more success.
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