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Posts Tagged ‘Amber Bumbalough’

Coupeville freshman Coral Caveness (in sunglasses) smacked two hits Saturday in a playoff game. (Photo by Kelly Crownover)

They were among the best to ever wear the uniform.

Coupeville High School seniors Hope Lodell, Lauren Rose and Katrina McGranahan were not only four-year players for the Wolf softball squad, but four-year stars.

All three were on the field, claiming the spotlight, from the first day of their freshman season, and their stellar play and quiet leadership helped the program blossom.

The trio’s journey ended a few days earlier than hoped, when Coupeville was eliminated from the district playoffs Saturday after a 7-4 loss to Olympic League rival Klahowya.

The defeat denied the Wolves (12-9) a trip to state, the second-straight season CHS fell a single game short of the big dance.

Klahowya (12-7), which snapped a two-year, six-game losing streak against Coupeville, advances to state for the first time since 2004.

While the loss ends the on-field run for the Wolf seniors, it can’t dim what they accomplished.

The trio won 47 games over four seasons, led CHS softball to a league title this season, its first in 16 years, and were the heart and soul of the program.

Last year’s team went 19-5, the second-best finish in the 40 years the Wolves have played softball, but Mouse, The Surgeon and Killer Kat shone as brightly in defeat as they did in victory.

And all three went down fighting Saturday, on a day when the game wasn’t decided until late, and when a hit here, a bad bounce there, and the result would have likely flipped.

Coupeville was hanging tough at 2-2 late in the top of the fifth, having pulled off the defensive play of the game.

Left fielder Mackenzie Davis fielded a hit with two runners on base and just one out, came up firing and laid a strike into Scout Smith’s glove at second.

The sophomore infielder pivoted and fired a rocket to catcher Sarah Wright, who slapped the tag on the incoming runner, preserving the tie and igniting the Wolf faithful in attendance.

At that moment, with CHS having crawled back from an early 2-0 deficit, all the momentum seemed in favor of the Wolves.

It wasn’t to be, however, as the Eagles cracked back-to-back huge hits to bust the game open.

A two-run double broke the tie, then an RBI single stretched the lead to 5-2 and, in two quick, lethal swings, KSS seized the day.

Coupeville didn’t go down quietly, though, as McGranahan came back to end the inning with the seventh of the eight strikeouts she tossed in her final game as a prep pitcher.

She added a spectacular diving catch in front of the circle in the sixth, but Klahowya scraped out two more runs in the seventh to really seal the deal.

Down to their final outs, the Wolves plated two of their own, setting the table with a single from Coral Caveness and a frozen rope of a double from Rose.

One run scooted home on an RBI ground-out from Smith, before McGranahan whacked an RBI single in her final at-bat.

While the late innings were full of offensive fireworks, much of the game was a pitcher’s duel between McGranahan and KSS hurler Amber Bumbalough.

In the four years the schools have played each other, Klahowya held the advantage in the first half, winning five of six games.

Years three and four belonged to Coupeville, as the Wolves won all six before Saturday, with this year’s three-game regular season sweep coming thanks to a 60-22 advantage.

In their final match-up with Bumbalough, the Wolves had the D-1 recruit on the ropes several times, but she escaped with a little skill and a little luck.

After surrendering two runs in the top of the first, CHS got one back on a single from Smith and a thunderous one-out triple off of McGranahan’s bat.

Klahowya escaped though, inducing a grounder for out #2, then nailing McGranahan at the plate on a wham-bam play off a passed ball.

Coupeville had a golden opportunity in the second, with Veronica Crownover and Chelsea Prescott camped at second and third with no outs.

Bumbalough reached deep for a little magic, though, punching out back-to-back Wolves, before forcing a chopper to first for the third out.

The game stayed 2-1 until the bottom of the fourth.

Prescott walked, stole second, then took off like a rocket and scored when Crownover, the team’s leading hitter this season, sliced an RBI single through the gap.

After a Caveness single and a drawn-out, testy exchange between the Klahowya coaching staff and the umps, Bumbalough took matters once again into her own hands.

With the go-ahead runs at second and third, she cracked off an inning-ending strikeout.

The two pitchers, who have dueled for four years running, finished their final meeting with eight strikeouts apiece.

Coupeville, which went 7-6 against Klahowya between 2015-2018, rapped eight hits in their final game in District 3.

The Wolves, who jump back to District 1 and the new North Sound Conference next year, got two hits each from McGranahan (3B, 1B) and Caveness (1B, 1B).

Rose smoked a double, while Prescott, Crownover and Smith added a base-knock apiece.

While the Wolves will miss their three seniors, they are primed to be a contender for years to come, as their roster was extremely balanced.

CHS had three seniors (Rose, Lodell, McGranahan), three juniors (Wright, Crownover, Nicole Laxton), three sophomores (Smith, Davis, Emma Mathusek) and three freshmen (Prescott, Caveness, Mollie Bailey) on their varsity roster.

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   Veronica Crownover blasted four hits Monday, including doubles to left, right and center, as Coupeville softball rallied to crunch Klahowya. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Cupcakes are for closers.

So it’s appropriate that while the Coupeville High School softball squad offered sugary goodies to their foes in Klahowya Monday, the only team who chose to chow down post-game was the Wolves.

When you hold fast, shrug off nerves, dodge the other team’s best shot and emerge to win, not with a whimper, but an emphatic bang, you earn your sweet, sweet dessert.

Raise your cupcakes, Wolf Nation, and hail a 12-7 win in extra innings on Coupeville’s final trip to Silverdale.

A tasty victory that came with two pressure-packed seventh-inning strikeouts from Katrina McGranahan and a hail of extra-base hits off the smokin’ bats of the CHS hurler and her teammates.

With the win, the Wolves tick multiple boxes on their checklist.

Coupeville completes a three-game season sweep of Klahowya, runs its win streak against the Eagles to six, improves to 5-0 this year against pitchers with D1 college scholarships and moves to 11-4 on the season.

Though, admittedly, getting there may have given CHS coach Kevin McGranahan a few gray hairs.

“We played a sloppy, but good, game,” he said. “We could have folded up our tents and went home with a 2-1 split with them, but instead our girls buckled down and sealed the deal.”

Halfway through the game, if you had raised the possibility of extra innings, you likely would have gotten a blank stare from most people.

Coupeville came out aggressively, sprayed hits around and built a 6-1 lead headed to the bottom of the fourth, controlling the game in almost every aspect.

That mirrored the first two times the teams tangled this season, both of which ended in lopsided Wolf wins.

CHS set Klahowya back on its heels from the first hitter, as Lauren Rose dropped a bunt that chewed through the crust of the Earth seeking a new route to China while the speed-demon Wolf zoomed to first without drawing a throw.

From there the Wolves peppered Klahowya, with Katrina McGranahan whacking a single into the hole between short and third, followed by three straight swings which produced runs.

Sarah Wright delivered the game’s first RBI on a ground-out, Chelsea Prescott plated another when an Eagle bobbled her hard chopper, and then Veronica Crownover began her all-day assault on KSS pitcher Amber Bumbalough.

Crownover, who was the driving force behind the cupcakes and offering them to Klahowya, beat the ever-lovin’ tar out of the ball, finishing with four of Coupeville’s 12 hits.

The first of her three fence-shaking doubles, in which she went to left, then right, then straightaway center in a dazzling display of pool hustler-like artistry, was a rocket that bounced off the scoreboard.

KSS managed to get out of the inning trailing just 3-0, then sliced a run off the lead when Bumbalough launched a two-out solo homer in the bottom half of the inning.

Coupeville didn’t blink, however, with ferocious frosh Prescott going yard in the third, the ball cresting the fence at its deepest point in center.

Tack on two more runs in the fourth, with Mollie Bailey and Rose tapping home thanks to a failed pick-off throw that skipped into left and a wild pitch, respectively, and the Wolves were cruising.

Until they hit a small bump in the road, than a slightly larger one, than one that threatened to knock the car completely off its wheels and throw Coupeville into a ditch.

Taking advantage of a rare rash of Wolf miscues on defense, Klahowya netted three runs in the fourth, then two more in the fifth, and suddenly, horrifyingly, a five-run lead had turned into a tie ball game.

After giving up the first three-spot, CHS had a chance to answer right back in the top of the fifth, when Hope Lodell sliced a gorgeous double that curled down the left-field line.

Having taken third on a passed ball, Lodell was primed to trot home, but Bumbalough bore down and escaped thanks to back-to-back strikeouts and a ground ball.

Facing the first of several moments in which they could have broken, but didn’t, Coupeville responded to the sudden tie by dropping an atom bomb.

It came off of the bat of Katrina McGranahan, a high, arcing shot to right-center that cleared the fence by several feet and skipped away, putting the Wolves back up 7-6.

And then things got tense. Really tense.

Klahowya put two runners aboard in the sixth, only to have Wolf catcher Sarah Wright pull off her best “gun slinger poppin’ people at high noon” act.

First the junior backstop nailed a runner trying to steal second, her throw arriving to Scout Smith’s glove two steps ahead of the incoming Eagle.

Then Wright topped that by snaring a ball that slipped out of her glove for a second, pivoting and launching a frozen rope to Prescott at third to erase another way-too-slow Eagle.

Coupeville had a chance to pad its lead in the seventh, but watched another lead-off double (this one from Crownover) wither on the vine and die before reaching home.

At the moment, it seemed like a missed opportunity, but not a fatal one.

Five minutes later the Wolves were on life support and wishing they had a time machine to go back and get a second crack at adding that insurance run.

A lead-off single, an intentional walk to the ultra-dangerous Bumbalough and a passed ball gave KSS runners at second and third with no outs in the bottom of the seventh.

Cue a tremendous defensive play, and then a gut-shot.

On a come-backer to the mound, McGranahan speared the ball, stared the runner at third down, then fired to Crownover at first.

As the ball flew across the diamond, the Eagle at third took off, Crownover stamped first, spun and fired a dart to Wright, who slapped the tag for the double play, punching the air out of Klahowya.

Or, it would have, if the second umpire hadn’t overruled the home plate guy, waving off the second out and awarding the Eagles the tying run on a (extremely) questionable interference call.

With Bumbalough, Klahowya’s fastest, smartest, most deadly, scariest runner (am I missing any superlatives here?) perched on third, and just one out, the odds of a KSS win were sitting at 97.4%.

Virtually anything hit on the ground, anything hit in the air, and she was coming home in a few strides, bringing with her a comeback win that would have sent an electric shock through Klahowya’s fan base.

Except she never got to move.

Reaching down deep into her soul and finding the killer lurking inside, McGranahan went right at the Eagles.

Strikeouts #7 and #8 on the afternoon were all the sweeter for being the one, and only thing, that could prevent Bumbalough from dancing away with the win.

As the final pitch from McGranahan to Wright hit mitt and earned a thunderous “strike three” from the ump, a cloud lifted from over the Wolves.

What could have been an extremely dispiriting loss, the kind that nags at you and eats away at your confidence, had been dodged.

And while some would say just for the moment, when the Wolves stepped to the plate to kick off extra innings in the top of the eighth, they strode to the plate with confidence fully restored.

Klahowya’s lineup was comprised of nine dead women walking from that moment.

Rose eked out a free pass, Smith reached on an error and then the middle of the order launched an RBI parade.

McGranahan and Wright brought runners around with wicked liners, a third run came flying in courtesy a passed ball and Crownover put the frosting on her cupcake-worthy performance.

She didn’t double this time, just whacked a two-run single up the middle to cap a five-run explosion, more than enough to make mom Kelly lose the last of her voice screaming like a wild woman in support of her “baby.”

As Coupeville’s baseball squad drifted over after clinching a league title, McGranahan drove the final stake through the heart of Silverdale’s finest, retiring the Eagles in order without allowing the ball out of the infield.

It was a fitting end to a rivalry which started one-sided and ended one-sided, just with the teams flipped.

After Klahowya won all six games between the teams during the first two years of the Olympic League, Coupeville flipped a switch starting in 2017.

Six wins, and one enormous gut-check later, the Wolf sluggers have earned their cupcakes. All of them.

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   Defensive hustle, like this shown by Ema Smith in an earlier game, has kept the Wolf girls in games this season. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The road to an Olympic League girls basketball title still goes through Coupeville.

While this year’s Wolves, battered by injuries and defections, aren’t running roughshod like they did the previous three seasons, they are still very much in the hunt for another crown.

That much was shown Tuesday, when CHS used a blistering defensive stand to throttle visiting Klahowya 28-17.

With the win, the Wolves rise to 3-2 in league play, 5-11 overall, and force a three-way tie at the top of the conference with four league games to play.

Port Townsend (3-2, 5-8) and Chimacum (3-2, 6-8), which Coupeville faces Friday, are part of the logjam, while Klahowya (1-4, 3-11) brings up the rear.

Facing off Tuesday with an Eagles squad which was coming off a big win over Chimacum, the Wolves clamped down and never let up.

Ferocious on the boards, Coupeville hounded Klahowya into a ton of bad shots and then snatched away the resulting rebounds.

While their own offensive prowess fluctuated throughout the game, the Wolves also proved deadly at the line, where they had a 13-5 advantage in made free throws.

The game didn’t exactly get off to a roaring start on the offensive end, as neither team scored in the first three minutes-plus, while Klahowya didn’t sink its first bucket until the 2:31 mark of the first quarter.

Clinging to a 4-2 lead at the first break, the Wolves promptly went scoreless for almost the first half of the second quarter.

But then, with the game knotted at 4-4, Scout Smith handed her squad a lead it would never relinquish.

The Wolf sophomore slashed to the hoop, drew the foul, then calmly swished a pair of free throws through the net to kick-start what would be an 11-0 run to end the half.

Scout Smith also drilled a jumper from the side during the surge, while Ema Smith, playing on a bum leg, but hiding it well, dropped in five, packaging a pair of buckets around a free throw.

Hannah Davidson slid a pair of free throws through the net with just a few ticks to play, and with Coupeville’s defense refusing to bend to Klahowya’s will, the game was 15-4 and firmly headed to the win column at the break.

The second half was a fairly even battle, with Lindsey Roberts stepping in to the spotlight to seal the deal for the Wolves.

The long ‘n lanky junior cleaned the boards like a pro, threw down seven points with a variety of moves — including a three-ball and a beautiful catch-and-roll through the paint for a layup — then punctuated things with a spike.

Late in the fourth, Klahowya was out on the break and had numbers, but Roberts, coming from behind, went airborne and firmly rejected an Eagle shot off the back wall.

Catching the ball with her fingertips, while avoiding the shooter’s body, she effectively ended the night’s conversation with a firm “No, ma’am!!”

Roberts block was emblematic of the defensive grit which has kept the Wolves afloat, even after they lost their #1 scorer when Mikayla Elfrank suffered a brutal ankle injury mid-season.

“Our defense keeps us in games and has really improved as the season has gone on,” said Coupeville coach David King. “Always happy to see us play like that.”

While Roberts was a one-woman wrecking crew, King also hailed the defensive work of others such as Sarah Wright, Allison Wenzel and Hannah Davidson, who “had her best game of the season.”

Coupeville, as it has done for much of the season, spread out its offensive workload, with Roberts tossing in a team-high nine.

Ema Smith banked home seven in support, while Scout Smith and Kyla Briscoe each added four.

Davidson and Wright rounded out the scoring with two apiece, Wenzel and Chelsea Prescott brought hustle when they were on the floor and Elfrank and Avalon Renninger were solid cheerleaders for their teammates.

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Amber Bumbalough

   Klahowya’s Amber Bumbalough honors her brother by following her dream on the softball diamond. (Photo courtesy Bumbalough)

“When I don’t get something, I keep going until I get it. I hate failure. I will push and push myself until I succeed.”

There is little doubt Amber Bumbalough is one of the top athletes in the Olympic League, and the Klahowya junior, who has lettered in swimming, basketball and softball every season she has played, has gotten there by refusing to surrender.

Through fatigue, injury and personal and family heartbreak, she keeps coming, relentless and committed in the pursuit of excellence.

“I want to make a name for myself,” Bumbalough said. “I don’t wanna be just another girl on the team.

“I want to stand out in the crowd.”

For outsiders, such as those of us here in Coupeville, we’ve witnessed her athletic excellence — she’s already a two-time league MVP in softball, where she excels at third base, shortstop and pitcher.

But while we’ve seen her stalk the pitcher’s circle and thump base hits to all fields or swish three-balls on the hardwood, what we’ve seen is the surface.

Go below and you find a young woman who is driven to excellence because every moment she crafts, every high she achieves, is a silent testament to her brother William, whom she deeply loves.

A brother who can’t be here with us in the stands to watch Amber soar. But one who will always be with her in spirit.

William Bumbalough passed away in 2012, but he walks out onto the field with his sister every time she charges out to play.

“He’s had the biggest impact on my life,” Amber Bumbalough said. “When he was killed in a car accident I thought everything was gone; I felt like I couldn’t do anything, going days on days without eating.

“He wasn’t the type who loved sports, but he wanted nothing but the best for me,” she added. “He always told me to go big and go to the top; he wants me to get there.”

Bumbalough has already attracted interest from college teams, both for her play at the high school level and with her select squad, and she is firmly committed to strive for the peak of her sport.

“My dream is to go Division 1 (in college) and I’m going to keep working my butt off until my dreams come true, or my dreams give up on me,” she said. “I play every game for William, knowing he’s watching.”

She’s 7-for-7 in lettering as a high school athlete (a broken finger kept her from swimming this fall), and draws something valuable from every one of her seasons.

“I enjoy getting to spend time with my teammates and creating a sisterly bond with them,” Bumbalough said.

But there is little doubt which sport claims her heart.

“Favorite sport is my softball,” she said. “This is my favorite because I have put so much time into it; I only wanna become bigger and better.”

Her pursuit of diamond excellence has taken Bumbalough to Eastern Washington, where she suited up with USA Explosion, and Puyallup, where she reps the Washington Ladyhawks.

Both teams, and their coaches, helped fine-tune her skill-set and love for the game.

Steve Farrington (USA Explosion) made me see the real side of softball that I didn’t ever see,” Bumbalough said. “When I wanted to give up, he showed me the side of the sport that made it so I couldn’t.

Wayne Miller (Ladyhawks) pushes me and gives me the opportunity to play the best of the best softball and helps me understand the game that much more.”

In the few moments when she’s not practicing or playing a sport, Bumbalough enjoys “listening to my music up loud” with little sister Hannah.

Hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd, rapper Russ and country stars Brett Eldridge and Keith Urban lead off the sister’s play list.

Bumbalough used to show pigs through 4-H, but has had to take a break recently as softball carves away more of her time.

Regardless of where she is, or what she’s doing, the Klahowya star draws inspiration from both her family and her community.

“I have a few people who have really impacted my life,” Bumbalough said. “Obviously my parents, for getting me where I am and supporting me with everything I do and always going to my sports events.

“Something that makes my school so special to me is the kids and teachers around me,” she added. “We are one big family; we’ve all been through the worst and the best of times.

“With the amount of losses we have had with students, it has hit us all very very hard, but we have helped each other get through it and it really makes me happy to see how strong we are for one another.”

Her own experiences dealing with loss continue to shape Bumbalough’s future plans, and she is working towards a goal of being a grief counselor.

“I want to help others who have gone through what I’ve gone through,” she said. “Losing a loved one is hard and it doesn’t get better; you just start to cope with not seeing them every day, hoping maybe they will come through the door.

“Everyone deals with grieving differently,” Bumbalough added. “But if I could help just even one person, I would feel like I have reached one of my biggest goals.”

 

Amber in action:

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Freshman Veronica Crownover had three hits and two RBI against the #1 team in 1A Tuesday. (John Fisken photo)

   Veronica Crownover was 3-for-3 with a double and two singles while facing the pitcher who is the reigning 1A Olympic League MVP. (John Fisken photo)

Wolf fans get comfortable while watching Wednesday's game. (Photo by Anonymous)

   Wolf fans Luke Carlson (left) and Jordan Ford get comfortable while watching Wednesday’s game. (Photo by Anonymous)

Veronica Crownover has no fear.

The Coupeville High School freshman softball slugger stared down the reigning 1A Olympic League MVP, Klahowya hurler Amber Bumbalough, and crushed three hits off of her in three plate appearances.

While Crownover’s sparkling Wednesday afternoon wasn’t enough to topple the Eagles by herself, it was one of several bright spots in the season’s final home game for the young Wolves.

Up 6-3 entering the fifth, Coupeville was stung by one never-ending 11-run inning in which Klahowya bashed the heck out of the ball, and eventually fell 16-6.

The loss dropped the Wolves to 3-6 in league play, 8-9 overall.

CHS has two non-conference games left on the schedule (May 10 at Bellevue Christian and May 16 at La Conner), then opens the district playoffs May 20.

Playing on Fan Appreciation Day, which included cake and a team-wide thank you from the players to their loyal supporters, things got off to an odd start.

Thanks to an ever-shuffling schedule, no umps showed up, delaying the start of the game a half-hour-plus.

Then, once the blue crew was in place, they conspired to make an odd call to stifle an early Wolf rally.

Trailing 2-0 in the bottom of the second, Coupeville had Sarah Wright at first with one out, when Jae LeVine went down on strikes.

The Klahowya catcher missed the ball, however, giving LeVine time to zip to first.

In the ensuing melee, after several throws, Wright came around to score, while LeVine was tagged out inches short of second-base.

Except, after a long discussion by the umps, the run was waved off, as Wright was called out for interference, even though no one, including the umps, seemed to know exactly why.

While the controversy would have cracked some teams, the Wolves seemed to shrug it off, immediately coming up with their best defensive play of the game.

Lauren Rose, making a rare appearance at short with Wright having slid to third when Katrina McGranahan took over on the mound, came flying from the side on a looping liner.

Nimbly sidestepping a collision with LeVine at second, Rose spun, went airborne and snagged the ball over her shoulder all in one balletic move.

Buoyed by Mouse’s miracle, Coupeville cut the lead to 3-2 with two runs in the third, then surged ahead in the fourth.

Kailey Kellner walked and Crownover lashed a single to center to set the table, with the Wolves plating them both on a RBI ground-out from Tiffany Briscoe and an RBI single from Rose.

While Coupeville left a runner at third to end the third, they picked right back up offensively in the fourth.

Klahowya’s third baseman botched a pop-up off the bat of Wright, but Bumbalough immediately came back with two straight strikeouts, seemingly slamming the door shut.

It wasn’t to be, though, as the Eagles left fielder bobbled a long fly by Kellner to keep the inning alive.

Given a gift run, a tie ball game and new life, Coupeville took advantage, with Crownover ripping an absolute laser shot of an RBI double, followed by a single from Briscoe.

Rose then parked one right between two outfielders.

While the right-fielder got her glove on it at the last second, all she could do was knock the blast down, while two more Wolves came scampering home.

At that point, up 6-3, with a runner at second and the smirk having vanished from Bumbalough’s face, Coupeville’s crowd was loud and its team was giddy.

And then it all went wrong.

Bumbalough escaped the fourth with an inning-ending strikeout, on a call that took about a month to come out of the ump’s mouth as she seemingly mentally reviewed the entire rule-book before saying “strike three.”

Then the Eagle bats erupted.

To its credit, Klahowya stepped up and claimed the win with one hard-hit ball after another. Coupeville didn’t give it to them with walks and errors.

The big blow was a three-run home run to straight away center, while the most painful was a two-run single back into the box that nailed McGranahan in the ankle and ricocheted into right.

Coupeville finally got out of the inning thanks to two big plays from sophomore catcher Mikayla Elfrank.

On the first, she came up firing, whipped a throw that McGranahan cut off at short, then took the return throw and held on while the Klahowya runner coming from third lowered her shoulder and hit her full-tilt.

A batter later, Elfrank was back at it, throwing off her mask and whirling around to snag a foul pop fly to finally end the bleeding.

Up 14-6, when a half hour before she had trailed 6-3, Bumbalough bore down and retired six of the final seven Wolf hitters to put the game on ice.

The only one to slip through? Crownover, who whacked her third straight base knock, this one a two-out single to right.

Coupeville collected seven hits, its best showing in three games this season against the Klahowya ace, with Rose (2), Wright and Briscoe joining Crownover on the hit parade.

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