Emma Mathusek had four RBI and a sensational catch in center field Thursday as Coupeville softball romped to a win at Sultan. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Boom, baby.
A wild Thursday is in the books, and, just like that, the Coupeville High School softball squad is back in first place.
The Wolves, missing two starters, swung by Sultan and still thumped the Turks 12-0 in a game called after six innings.
Meanwhile, off in Bothell, with both teams having apparently taken a detour into the Twilight Zone, Cedar Park Christian pulled off the upset of the season, shocking Granite Falls 14-10.
With those twin verdicts both falling in favor of Coupeville, the Wolves, now 2-1 in North Sound Conference play, 4-3 overall, move back to the penthouse.
They’re sharing it with Granite (2-1, 5-4), while Cedar Park (1-1, 3-1) and South Whidbey (1-1, 3-3) sit a game back, and Sultan (0-2, 0-4) brings up the rear.
How CPC, a team Coupeville crushed 13-2 the first time around, beat the bashers from Granite, is a question for another day.
For now, we’ll focus on the Wolves, and how they polished off the Turks.
A band trip erased pitcher Izzy Wells and third-baseman Mollie Bailey from the starting lineup, while a foot injury kept go-go reserve Chloe Wheeler sitting on the bench, operating as an enthusiastic cheerleader for her teammates.
In their place, freshman Kylie Van Velkinburgh got a promotion, at least for one day, and made her varsity debut in right field in the game’s final inning.
For one brief second, the game looked like it might be close, as Coupeville came away with nothing in the top of the first.
Wolf lead-off hitter Scout Smith opened the game with a single, but a botched bunt turned into a rally-killing double play, giving Sultan a flicker of hope.
A very, very brief flicker.
Smith, stepping into the circle, was dealin’ from her first pitch to her last, whiffing five Turks while letting only a handful reach base.
Any potential trouble was promptly squashed by stellar defensive play from her support crew.
Coupeville’s outfielders, who struggled while staring into a fiery, hellish sun two days before at Granite Falls, were flawless on this day.
The trio of Nicole Laxton, Emma Mathusek, and Mackenzie Davis tracked down anything and everything which went airborne, with Mathusek making a sensational catch on a blast to center.
She and Laxton almost collided, but the silky-smooth center-fielder hurdled her partner at the last second, while refusing to let the rapidly-falling ball get away from her.
CHS catcher Sarah Wright also gunned down a rare would-be base thief, delivering a frozen rope which landed with a happy little plop into shortstop Chelsea Prescott’s glove.
The one, and only time Sultan had a chance to score a run came in the fifth, when it put a runner at third with just one out.
Cue a flawlessly-executed double play, as Smith speared a bouncer back up the middle, froze the runner at third, then whipped the ball to first-baseman Veronica Crownover.
Tapping her toe on the bag for one out, Crownover promptly launched a missile to Wright, who spun and slapped the very soul out of the incoming Turk for the inning-ending third out.
After their brief brush with offensive unhappiness in the first, the Wolves tore the hide off the ball the rest of the way, cracking 12 hits, with four going for extra bases.
Crownover had the bashingest bat in the lineup, going a sweet four-for-four at the plate, with a mammoth double followed by three long singles.
The Wolves got their first three runs of the game in the second inning, scoring them all after starting with Crownover camped at third base with two outs.
Walks to Mackenzie Davis and Nicole Laxton (who was plunked for the 27,651st time in her career) juiced the bags, then Coral Caveness and Emma Mathusek earned RBI walks, packaged around a run-scoring single off of Smith’s electric bat.
Not content to stop there, Coupeville lit up the joint in the third inning, rolling up six runs off of five hits, including doubles from Wright and Mathusek and a triple by Chelsea Prescott.
Each extra-base hit went further than the one before it, with Mathusek’s bomb to deep left only topped by Prescott lashing a ball that dove under an outfielder’s mitt before skipping merrily away to go kiss the right field fence.
Up 9-0, the Coupeville bus was revving its engine in the parking lot, which seemed to light a brief (very brief) spark under the Turks.
Backed by a girl on the bench whose scream was reminiscent of a Navy jet taking off right next to your ear canals, Sultan made a couple sweet defensive plays of their own to stifle the Wolves through the fourth and fifth.
The best was a tumbling snag by the Turk shortstop on a hot liner.
Her own double play partner came crashing through the scene, undercutting the shortstop, who went airborne, pulling off a hap-hazarded cartwheel while robbing Laxton.
And let’s take a moment to give it up for Nicole.
She remains the most pleasantly positive athlete in Wolf Nation, even after being plunked, robbed of a hit by a miracle play, then forced to ride home on the ferry with her thumb stuck in a cup of ice after taking a later pitch off of the digit in question.
Laxton deserves all the cheers. All of them, I said.
Coupeville finally got up and over the 10-run mercy rule margin by tossing in three final runs in the top of the sixth.
Mathusek capped a four RBI game with a bases-loaded walk, while Prescott shouldered her bat like a missile launcher and let loose with another epic blast to plate the final two runs.
The sophomore slugger was denied a hit, because a Turk outfielder got some glove on the ball, but the orb was covered in fire as it hit mitt, and there was no way it was going to stay in the webbing.
As he left the field, content with his own victory while not yet knowing about Granite’s debacle, CHS coach Kevin McGranahan praised his players.
“We came out a little flat in the first, but quickly hit our stride,” he said. “Our offense came alive and defensively we played much better; we were error-free and the outfield bounced back nicely, as I knew they would.
“All in all, it was a good game to focus on the basics.”
Crownover paced the hit machine with her four base-knocks, while Smith whittled away at the defense, poking holes to every field with her three singles.
Wright (1B, 2B), Prescott (3B), Mathusek (2B), and Caveness (1B) also had hits, and Laxton, Davis, and Audrianna Shaw combined for four of Coupeville’s nine walks.
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