15-1 on the season? It must be the seeds. (Stephanie Pulliam photo)
Right back on track.
Bouncing back from its first loss of the season, the Central Whidbey Little League Minors baseball squad drilled the North Whidbey Giants 10-4 Wednesday, advancing to the championship of the Henry Pope Memorial Tournament.
With three wins in four tourney games, the Coupeville nine sit at 15-1.
To win the title, they’ll need to knock off South Whidbey #2 — the team which handed them that lone defeat — twice.
Game one is Thursday. Win and Friday is for all the marbles.
Wednesday night, Central Whidbey was coming off a heart-breaker, having surrendered a one-run lead in the final inning Tuesday in a 3-2 loss.
The Coupeville players made life a whole lot less stressful on their coaches against North Whidbey, pounding the wall and jumping to an early lead they never gave up.
Using several big hits, including doubles from Landon Roberts and Chase Anderson, and a whole lot of walks, Central Whidbey jumped out to a 5-1 lead coming out of the top of the third.
North Whidbey scraped together three runs in the bottom of the inning to pull within 5-4, but could get no closer.
Three runs in the top of the fourth stretched the lead back out, before Jack Porter pounded the last nail in North Whidbey’s coffin.
Crunching a two-run home run in the fifth, he set the final margin with his blast.
Central pounded out six hits on the day, while taking advantage of nine walks (three by having its hitters plunked).
Porter led the way, with a single and his tater, while Roberts, Anderson, Peyton Caveness and Jordan Bradford all added a base-knock.
Caveness, Roberts and Porter combined to whiff 10 North Whidbey hitters while doing time on the mound, with Alex Smith, Kyrese Simpson, John Rachal, Mike Robinett, Johnny Porter and Levi Pulliam rounding out the Central lineup.
