Matt Hilborn ripped an RBI single Wednesday during a tough loss at Chimacum. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Flip the script.
That’s what the Chimacum High School baseball squad is trying to do this season, and, so far, it’s been highly-successful.
After finishing in third-place in each of the previous three seasons of the 1A Olympic League, the Cowboys have taken sole possession of first-place a third of the way through the 2018 season.
Chimacum made that jump by holding on in the rain Wednesday to nip visiting Coupeville 5-4 in an early battle for supremacy.
With the win, the Cowboys (3-0 in league play, 4-5 overall) go a game up on the Wolves (2-1, 7-4), who saw their four-game win streak snapped.
Defending league champ Klahowya (1-2, 2-7) and Port Townsend (0-3, 0-6) bring up the rear at the moment.
While Coupeville wanted to make a statement, and keep its best start in a decade going, the loss is not crippling.
There are six more league games still to play, and the Wolves will play four of those, including both future match-ups with Chimacum (Apr. 23 and 27) on their home diamond.
CHS didn’t play badly Wednesday, but came up short a few times and couldn’t get any help.
“Tough loss! Good game, but couldn’t get any of the breaks to go our way and we missed a few opportunities to help ourselves out,” said Coupeville coach Chris Smith. “Either way, we focus on winning or learning and we did some learning today.”
The Wolves struck first, getting a two-out triple from Hunter Smith followed by an RBI single off the bat of Julian Welling in the top of the first.
As it would all too often, though, the brief rally died there and Chimacum immediately answered with two runs of its own in the bottom half of the inning.
A pair of walks set the table for Cole Dotson, who brought both of his teammates around with a two-run single to left-center.
It was all the Cowboys would get, though.
Smith, who whiffed four while tossing a complete game, promptly got himself out of the inning with his first two K’s of the day.
Chimacum added a run in the second, taking advantage of both a passed ball and a wild pitch, dropping the Wolves into their biggest deficit of the afternoon.
Coupeville is an opportunistic team, however, and has shown skill at rallying from deficits all season.
Wednesday was no different as the Wolves plated two in the top of the third to tie things up.
Again it was the red-hot Welling, whose single knocked in Nick Etzell, who doubled, and Smith, who had been plunked by a pitch.
CHS left two aboard, though, one of many opportunities left unexplored in a rain-soaked game.
The Cowboys scraped out six hits against Smith, who was undefeated coming in to the start, and three of them came in the game-busting bottom of the third.
Stringing together base-knocks from Matthew Bainbridge, Cody Clark and Aaron Serrato, Chimacum picked up its final two runs, taking the lead for good.
After Coupeville sliced the deficit back to one run in the fourth, with Jake Pease walking and scampering home on an RBI single by Matt Hilborn, the two teams descended into a pitcher’s duel.
Neither squad tallied a run in their final three times at bat, as Smith and Dotson traded goose eggs the rest of the way.
The Wolves had a couple of shots, with Welling crushing a one-out double in the fifth, only to be stranded, and Kyle Rockwell called out on interference on what should have been a sixth inning base-knock.
Coupeville matched Chimacum’s six hits, with Welling picking up 50% of those with two singles and a double.
Hilborn, Etzell (getting his extra-base hit on the birthday of older twin siblings Marisa and Lucas) and Smith rounded out the hit parade.
The Wolves get a couple days off to tweak their games (and avoid the raindrops), returning to action with a pair of non-conference games against Sequim and La Conner Apr. 16 and 19.
After that comes the stretch run, six straight league bouts in a 13-day period.
