baseball | Coupeville Sports

Posts Tagged ‘baseball’

This one hurts!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged 1A Olympic League, baseball, CHS Wolves, errors, Klahowya, Matt Hilborn on April 22, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Wolf catcher Taylor Consford had two hits Friday, but Coupeville fell to Klahowya. (John Fisken photo)

Slip-sliding away.

Coupeville’s chances of repeating as Olympic League champs in baseball took a shot to the ribs Friday, and while its hopes aren’t dead, they’re getting closer to flat-lining.

A rough fifth inning in which the Wolves surrendered five runs with two outs allowed host Klahowya to break open a close game and make off with an 11-6 win.

The loss, the second in as many games against the Eagles this season, drops Coupeville to 2-2 in league play, 7-7 overall.

That leaves the Wolves in a second-place tie with Chimacum (2-2, 4-4), two-and-a-half games off of Klahowya (5-0, 6-3).

Port Townsend (0-5, 0-7) is firmly stuck in the cellar.

CHS still has time to rally, with five league games left on the schedule, but to keep the Eagles from regaining the title they won in 2015, the Wolves will absolutely have to finish with a better record.

By taking the first two games of the three-game season series, Klahowya holds a tiebreaker over Coupeville should they finish with identical records.

The Wolves jumped out to an early lead Friday, scoring a run in the first on a double by Hunter Smith and an RBI single by Clay Reilly, but their hosts never blinked.

Klahowya rallied for three in the bottom half of the opening inning, then plated another run in the second to build a 4-1 lead.

Coupeville twice cut the margin back to one, first at 4-3, then at 5-4 heading into the bottom of the fourth.

The Wolves picked up two runs in the third — Taylor Consford drilled a double to score Matt Hilborn, then came around himself when the Eagles booted a ball hit by Reilly.

Kory Score reached on an error in the fourth, moved up on a steal and a single off of Joey Lippo’s bat, before shooting across home on a passed ball and the game looked like it would come down to a single play.

Then, things kind of fell apart.

After answering with their own run in the fourth, the Eagles exploded for a ten-batter, five-run fifth to bust the game wide open.

All the damage came after there were two outs, as a deadly mix of walks, Wolf errors and a balk or two conspired to doom the visitors.

Coupeville rallied for two in the top of the seventh, on RBI singles by Consford and Reilly, but it wasn’t enough.

The Wolves did manage to pile up 10 hits, with Hilborn and Consford collecting two apiece, but Klahowya hurler Dylan Zuber managed to spend most of the afternoon getting out of trouble while suffering minimal damage.

Read Full Post »

“Big Game James” erupts!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged baseball, CHS Wolves, Elliott Johnson, James Vidoni, JV, Klahowya on April 21, 2017| Leave a Comment »

James Vidoni had three hits and three RBI Friday, propelling Coupeville to a 12-8 win. (Melissa Losey photos)

Beautiful day, beautiful win for the Wolf JV.

The prairie was hot, but James Vidoni was hotter.

The Coupeville High School slugger crunched three hits Friday, including a game-breaking two-run single, to spark the Wolf JV baseball team to a 12-8 win over visiting Klahowya.

Coming on the rarest of days, when fans shed nearly every last layer of clothing and openly scorched their milky-white skin under a rare object in the sky we were told is called “the sun,” Coupeville erupted for nine runs during a 15-batter third inning.

The win, coming a day after a narrow loss at South Whidbey, lifts the Wolf JV to 2-5 on the season.

Facing off with an Olympic League rival for the first time this year — neither Chimacum or Port Townsend have JV squads — Coupeville rapped out nine hits.

Starting pitcher Elliott Johnson punched out four singles on mom Mimi’s birthday to pace the attack, while Jake Pease and Gavin Knoblich added singles.

But it was Vidoni who lit the fuse.

“That was great to see James hit like that,” said CHS coach Mike Etzell. “Really got everyone on the team going.”

Vidoni started by launching an RBI double over the head of the Klahowya left fielder in the bottom of the second, plating Knoblich to knot things up at 1-1.

Jump to the bottom of the third and the Wolves were trailing 2-1.

Johnson had whiffed four Eagles, but a seeing-eye single into the gap snuck through, allowing the visitors to (briefly) recapture the lead.

Then the game took a hard turn, and a positive one for Coupeville.

After juicing the bags with no outs on a Johnson single and walks to Pease and Kyle Rockwell, the Wolves started dropping runs at a rapid pace.

Johnny Carlson and Knoblich eked out bases-loaded walks to make it 3-2, before Vidoni cranked a single.

Rockwell scored easily, while Carlson, practically running out of his shoes, pulled off a nifty hop-skip-and-jump ballet move at the plate to avoid a possible tag.

As he dodged the catcher’s mitt, the decently-sized and rabidly pro-Wolf crowd sucked in its collective breath, then exploded in delirium, shock mixing with respect for Carlson’s surprisingly nimble toes.

Two more bases-loaded walks, earned by Cameron Dahl and Shane Losey, stretched the lead to 7-2, before Johnson collected an RBI single, his second base-knock in the inning.

Not to be outdone, Pease lobbed his own two-run single into center to cap the nine-run explosion, effectively sealing the deal for the Wolves.

Klahowya scraped together four runs in the fourth to tighten the game a bit, but Johnson and Pease, who came on in relief, combined to blunt the Eagle attack the rest of the way.

Johnson and Knoblich added RBI singles for Coupeville’s final two runs, while the Wolves played often-inspired defense behind their tag-team pitching staff.

Rockwell pulled off a pair of sweet defensive gems at first base, throwing out a runner headed into second off of a grounder into the hole and later snagging a ball down the line for an unassisted put-out.

Losey erased another Eagle by remaining alert at all times.

A Klahowya runner successfully stole second in the sixth inning, but came off the bag without calling time and Losey, who had taken the throw from Dahl, sprinted up from behind, tagging him out before he realized his mistake.

Coupeville got something from all 11 players on the day’s roster, with Jacob Zettle, Seth Weatherford and Gavin Straub chipping in to the effort.

“Just a good team win for these guys,” said an elated Etzell as he congratulated his players afterwards.

Read Full Post »

Complete and utter annihilation!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged baseball, CHS Wolves, Jonathan Thurston, La Conner, rout on April 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »

After crunching a pair of doubles in a 19-0 win, Hunter Smith gives lil’ sis Scout, whose softball team won 19-9, a ride. (Charlotte Young photo)

Jonathan Thurston was dealing.

The Coupeville High School senior hurler was flat-out nasty Thursday, shredding a young La Conner squad while his own teammates smacked the crud out of the ball en route to a 19-0 win.

The lopsided non-conference victory lifts the Wolves to 7-6 heading into a key Olympic League showdown Friday at Klahowya.

Wolf coach Chris Smith plopped the ball into his senior’s hand, sat back and enjoyed the show.

“Johnny threw a great game!”

La Conner got its first two hitters on base, thanks to a walk and a single, and then, after that, it was lights out.

Thurston stranded both Brave runners, striking out three in a row to escape the first, then eventually ran his streak to 10 straight hitters retired.

He gave up a one-out single in the fourth, but Coupeville promptly erased the runner when catcher Taylor Consford threw him out trying to steal second.

For the afternoon, Thurston finished with 10 strikeouts, while facing only two batters over the minimum in a game called after five innings thanks to the mercy rule.

And La Conner needed mercy, as Coupeville’s hitting mixed with its own inability to hang on to the ball doomed the Braves.

By the time the Wolves were done, they had rung up 14 hits.

Tack on 13 La Conner errors and the runs were flying across the plate in season-high numbers.

Coupeville plated seven in the first, added three in the second, another four in the third, then coasted home with five in the fourth.

In a game in which eight different Wolves notched at least one hit, Dane Lucero had the hottest bat, rapping out three singles and piling up five RBIs.

Four other CHS sluggers — Hunter Smith, Joey Lippo, Matt Hilborn and Clay Reilly — had two base-knocks apiece, with both of Smith’s being doubles.

Julian Welling, Kory Score and Consford added singles, with Hilborn, Welling and Score notching three RBIs apiece.

Read Full Post »

Short-circuited in Sequim!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged 1A vs. 2A, baseball, CHS Wolves, Joey Lippo, Sequim on April 18, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Joey Lippo, seen bunting in an earlier game, and the Coupeville offense were largely shut down Monday by Sequim’s pitchers. (John Fisken photo)

The fourth inning was great.

Everything else on either side, not as much, however.

Only able to get the offense clicking during one brief spurt Monday, the Coupeville High School baseball squad fell 9-3 at Sequim.

The non-conference loss drops the Wolves to 6-6 on the season.

It was the second time CHS faced Sequim this season, and, while the score was slightly better (the Wolves lost 14-4 at home Mar. 17), they still struggled with their 2A foes.

“We couldn’t stop them from scoring,” said Wolf coach Chris Smith. “And they controlled us and kept us off balance in all but one inning.”

During that fourth inning Coupeville sent nine batters to the plate, brought three around, but left the bags juiced.

Things started off with a resounding triple off the bat of Clay Reilly.

Singles from Dane Lucero and Matt Hilborn, wrapped around an RBI ground-out by Kory Score and two Wolf hitters — Julian Welling and Jake Hoagland — reaching on errors, kept the good times rolling.

Other than that, though, the Wolf offense sputtered.

Through the first three innings, Coupeville only had two base runners, with Welling drilling a single and Hunter Smith walking.

Then, after the fourth inning breakout, the final 10 CHS hitters went down in order.

Sequim, by contrast, never had a breakout inning, but steadily chipped away at the Wolf hurlers.

The hosts put up a two-spot in the first, then added three in the third and a solo run in both the fourth and fifth, before capping things with two more in the sixth.

Coupeville used three pitchers, with Taylor Consford (3), Jonathan Thurston (3) and Hilborn (1) combining for seven strikeouts.

Read Full Post »

Who will rule the world?!!

Posted in standings, tagged 1A Olympic League, baseball, CHS Wolves, Softball, standings on April 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Mikayla Elfrank is having a stellar season for a CHS softball squad which sits at 7-1 headed into a non-conference game Saturday afternoon. (John Fisken photo)

Klahowya is winning the spring, but Coupeville is winning the school year.

The Eagles have a 10-7 edge on the Wolves in varsity league wins this season (though have also played two more games), while CHS is holding a 39-34 advantage when you add in fall and winter totals.

Now, there’s still a ton of games to be played.

Coupeville alone has 22 league clashes left, with baseball (6), softball (6), tennis (5) and soccer (5) having more than 50% of their schedules left.

But, if we’re living in the moment, here’s where we stand:

Spring:

Klahowya 10
Coupeville 7
Chimacum 5
Port Townsend 2

2016-2017 school year:

Coupeville 39
Klahowya 34
Port Townsend 24
Chimacum 18

Year-to-date totals cover volleyball, football, girls and boys soccer, girls and boys tennis, girls and boys basketball, softball, and baseball.

Track is not included since dual meets make win-loss records worthless and we only include sports Coupeville plays.

This blog ain’t called Klahowya Sports…

And the current standings through games played Friday:

Olympic League softball: