Matt Hilborn had Coupeville’s lone hit Monday in a loss to Chimacum. (Photo by Karen Carlson)
The bats need to wake up.
The Coupeville High School baseball team has put together solid stretches of pitching this season, played some inspired defense, and are nailing most of the intangibles.
But the Wolves just can’t score.
After a closer than it probably sounds 7-1 non-conference home loss Monday to Chimacum, Coupeville has the same number of losses as runs scored this season.
That number is six, and when you average a run per game, it’s not especially surprising to be sitting at 0-6.
“We have solid hitters, but the bats are just sleeping right now,” said CHS coach Chris Smith.
“I always say, if you can score seven runs, you’re probably going to win at least 75% of your games at the high school level,” he added. “Score one run and…”
He trailed off then, as the rain drops began to fall on the prairie, before immediately bouncing back with his customary high energy and positive attitude.
Talk of getting a chicken and reenacting a Major League-style curse breaker on his player’s bats brought a smile to Smith’s face and a chuckle from his assistant coaches.
And it’s true.
While Coupeville is still adapting to having lost eight seniors to graduation after a 15-6 season, this year’s roster does have players with pop in their bats, such as Matt Hilborn, Jake Pease, and Dane Lucero.
And there were multiple times Monday when it seemed the Wolves were about to break through, about to crack things open against their former league rivals.
But, it wasn’t to be, as a few few timely hits from Chimacum’s bottom of the order hitters fractured a pitcher’s duel.
“That’s the kind of timeliness of hitting we’re looking for over here,” Smith said. “We did a nice job with our bunt game today; our “small ball” game is really working, but we just haven’t been getting the kind of big hits we need.”
After both teams pushed across a run in their half of the first inning, the teams carried that 1-1 tie all the way until the top of the fifth.
Chimacum got on the board first, thanks to a two-out error on a high, arcing ball which banged off a retreating infielder’s glove as it plunged down into no man’s land between second base and center field.
Given new life, the Cowboys plated their runner with a steal followed by a sharp RBI single back up the middle.
Coupeville promptly answered, with Hilborn walking, taking second on an impeccable sacrifice bunt from Hawthorne Wolfe, then coming around to score after the Cowboy catcher airmailed a throw into center on a botched pick-off.
Lucero was humming on the mound, whiffing six through the first four innings, while getting a bit of help from his defense.
Mason Grove, making his first start of the season at catcher in place of Gavin Knoblich, who was out of state at his grandparent’s 45th wedding anniversary celebration, came up big in the third.
Popping up from behind the plate, Grove whipped a strike down the line to Pease at third base to nail a Cowboy who mistakenly thought he might steal the bag.
“Mason going in to play at what is a big, big position, I thought he handled himself well,” Smith said. “I’m proud of how he played out there.”
Grove’s sniper act was immediately followed by Daniel Olson making a superb stab on a ball hit deep into the hole at second, then spinning and flicking the ball to Wolf first-baseman Ulrik Wells for the wham-bam out.
But, while Lucero and Co. were stifling the Chimacum bats, the same thing was happening on the other side of things.
Coupeville’s one, and only hit of the day, came when Hilborn beat out an infield single in the bottom of the fifth.
It could have been his second base-knock, but one at-bat before he had been brutally denied by the same ump.
Missing his seeing-eye dog, the man in blue was the only person in the stadium to believe the Chimacum first-baseman tagged Hilborn as he shot by trying to beat out another infield chopper.
Unable to generate much offense, Coupeville hung tough until the fifth, when one well-placed hit, and some luck, let the Cowboys crack the game open.
Two of the three Chimacum hitters to reach base in the inning did so thanks to judgement calls in which the ump felt the Cowboy hitter beat the throw to first by a (very small) hair.
The third hit was legitimate, though, a rocket to right which capped a game-busting three-run rally.
Lucero closed strongly, coming back to notch strikeouts #7 and #8, with the first one coming after the Wolf hurler dug himself into a 3-0 hole on the count.
Chimacum added another three-spot on the scoreboard in the sixth to ice things, but Lucero and freshman reliever Cody Roberts, who tossed 1.2 innings of scoreless ball, made the Cowboys work for everything.
Olson gave a big helping hand to Roberts, pulling off a double play to end the sixth.
The sophomore second-bagger slid to his left to spear a liner, then doubled a straying Chimacum runner off of first to slam the door shut.
While Coupeville only had the one hit, it did put runners on base almost every inning, thanks to six walks.
Shane Losey scampered to first base twice after winning a battle of wills with Cowboy hurlers, while Hilborn, Pease, Lucero, and Bryce Payne each walked once.
