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The Falcons are alright: Ricky Muzzy explodes!!

Posted in Baseball, South Whidbey: Not the Antichrist, tagged baseball, CHS Wolves, Ricky Muzzy, South Whidbey High School on April 24, 2014| 1 Comment »

Ricky Muzzy goes airborne as Coupeville’s Korbin Korzan slides into the bag. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Muzzy prepares to unload on a hapless pitcher.

I am often accused of picking on South Whidbey (and it’s mostly true), so, from time to time, I offer an olive branch to Coupeville’s closest rival.

While I don’t exactly want the Falcons to beat the Wolves at anything, the reality is there are a lot of very talented, very smart young men and women wearing the blue and white.

Let’s take a moment to acknowledge them.

Cause Lord knows the Canadian-owned South Whidbey Record isn’t exactly doing a bang-up job at it.

The legend of Ricky Muzzy is growing.

The South Whidbey High School sophomore, a two-sport star for the Falcons, delivered the biggest hit in recent Whidbey Island baseball history Monday.

When he lashed a two-out, bottom of the seventh RBI single, plating Jake Sladky, Muzzy lifted the Langley diamond men to their first win over Cascade Conference royalty Archbishop Thomas Murphy in seven seasons.

Then, since the 1-0 win felt so good, Muzzy and the Falcons went back out Wednesday, this time in Everett, and bounced ATM 5-4 to become the first team to knock off the Wildcats twice this season.

Now 11-5 on the season (9-5 in league play) South Whidbey has bounced back from losing its season-opening series to Coupeville to take firm hold of the race between the two 1A schools for a #1 playoff seed.

It’s been a fun ride for Muzzy, who, while he enjoys his time on the basketball court, where he plays guard for the Falcons, gets the most excited when he takes the field and sprints out to play shortstop.

“My athletic strength is baseball!,” Muzzy said. “I love it because of the relationships you build with your teammates and coaches, and just the game itself is great.”

His walk off base knock against ATM has found a spot on his personal highlight reel, along with “my first varsity baseball start, and home run last year.”

Muzzy hails his family for helping him succeed, both in sports and in life.

“My parents, for teaching me how to work hard and making me into the young man I am today,” he said. “All my friends, all of my coaches, as well.”

A big fan of his biology, Algebra 2 and Spanish classes (“I love all my teachers!”), Muzzy keeps a strong focus on his class work.

Though he still has more than half his high school career to go, he’s already looking ahead at the future.

“I’d like to go to a good college and study sports medicine,” Muzzy said. “And yes, it has always been my dream to play baseball at the college level.”

When he’s not on the baseball diamond, he keeps his skills sharp by playing Wiffle ball during the summer.

A fan of Jack Johnson’s music, his favorite movie is “probably “The Hobbit”.”

And, while Wolf fans can ponder how nice it would be to have the sweet-swinging, crisp-fielding Muzzy camped out in the middle of the infield if his family were to suddenly move, he seems quite content down South.

“South Whidbey has a lot of nice people, good coaches, good teachers,” Muzzy said. “Overall, it’s just a really enjoyable place to go to school!”

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Kyle Bodamer? American Badass!!

Posted in A freakin' American hero, Baseball, Boys Tennis, Happy birthday, tagged baseball, CHS Wolves, Happy birthday, Kyle Bodamer, naughty nuns, tennis on April 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Kyle Bodamer: Rebel, Legend, Hero.

There’s a movie, one of the true American classics, a little gem known as “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.”

Midway through this all-time great (which I may have seen more times than is reasonable), there’s this exchange between our hero and his wannabe-girlfriend.

“There’s a lotta things about me you don’t know anything about, Dottie. Things you wouldn’t understand. Things you couldn’t understand. Things you shouldn’t understand.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t wanna get mixed up with a guy like me. I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel.”

Take out the loner part (he has too many friends) and keep the rebel part, and you have Coupeville High School junior Kyle Bodamer.

Sure, he’s a baseball and tennis player for the Wolves, and a pretty darn good one, but Bodamer, who celebrates his birthday today, is more than that.

Much more.

He’s the guy who tempts the wrath of the Fun Police by dressing up as a nun and ticking off stuffy, over-privileged rival private schools with his antics during volleyball matches.

That’s a legend right there.

He’s one of the dudes who finishes the tennis season with partially-healed burns on his legs because he dives on CEMENT courts like he’s still wearing a baseball uniform and he thinks the court will be as soft as the infield.

Or because he doesn’t care that it’s hard. It’s just in his way.

He does it all, this American rebel.

Swatting killer bees with Brian Norris on the tennis court.

Macking on baseball mom cupcakes.

Or, coming really, really close to nailing CHS baseball coach Willie Smith in the head with a line drive double a moment after Smith yelled at him to “Pull your head out of your butt and concentrate, Bodamer!!”

They both had mega-watt smiles as Bodamer gave him the stare-down from second, two showmen on the same crazy wavelength.

He is one of the most entertaining people to pull on the Wolf uniform and we, his fans, hail him.

Never let the Fun Police win.

Shine on, you crazy rebel. Shine on.

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Power outage on the prairie!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged baseball, Ben Etzell, CHS Wolves, Granite Falls, pitcher's duel on April 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Shortstop CJ Smith and the Wolf defense played flawless ball behind Ben Etzell Monday. They just couldn’t score any runs for him. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Ben Etzell was nearly flawless Monday, but still lost.

Despite retiring the final 17 batters he faced, eight on strikeouts and the final one on a wild popup he chased face-first into the fence to snag, the Coupeville High School senior hurler was let down by his offense.

When the Wolves stranded the tying run at third in the bottom of the seventh, all Etzell could do was take his mitt and move on to the next battle.

The 1-0 loss to visiting Granite Falls meant his squad had scored a grand total of one run in his last three starts.

The loss hurt Coupeville’s pursuit of South Whidbey for the #1 seed among 1A schools in the 1A/2A Cascade Conference.

The Wolves are 5-7 in league play, 6-7 overall, while the Falcons, who upset Archbishop Thomas Murphy 1-0 Monday, are 8-5 in the conference and have opened a 2.5 game lead.

Coupeville has six to play (two more against Granite, a makeup game against Lakewood and three against Sultan) and own the tiebreaker, having taken two of three against South Whidbey to open the season.

But if they have any hopes of playing catch-up, they will have to find a consistent offensive flow.

With back-to-back wins over 2A Lakewood, it looked like they had. And they did hit the ball Monday, but just right at defenders with waiting mitts almost every single time.

Coupeville didn’t get its first base-runner until #9 hitter Josh Bayne whacked a two-out single to left center in the third inning.

After that, all they could muster until the seventh was a Kurtis Smith single, and he, like Bayne, was stranded at first.

With the stands filling up a bit in the seventh with the arrival of CHS softball players whose practice across the street had just ended, the Wolves seemed set to pull-out a comeback win.

“Do you smell that? I smell a rally!!,” bellowed center-fielder Wade Schaef, and Coupeville immediately responded.

Aaron Trumbull led off by crushing a pitch into the wind in right field that the Granite outfielder misplayed, then skipped in to second while the Tigers tried to track down the loose ball.

But it wasn’t to be, as Aaron Curtin, still battling a shoulder injury, was unable to get a bunt down to advance Trumbull.

Korbin Korzan hit into a fielder’s choice to move the runner up, but with two outs, sophomore Cole Payne went down on strikes to end Coupeville’s lone threat of the afternoon.

Granite got the only run it turned out to need without hitting the ball out of the infield in the first.

The Tiger lead-off hitter beat out a slow chopper to short, then Etzell plunked a batter.

With catcher Jake Tumblin’s throwing hand bandaged after a recent injury, he and Etzell got crossed up on how many fingers were being shown and what pitch was called, and a passed ball moved the runners up.

With the infield back, a fielder’s choice to shortstop plated what, at the time, seemed like an insignificant run.

After that it was lights out for Etzell, who surrendered a bloop single to right in the second, then went off on his run, going one batter shy of two complete runs through the Granite lineup.

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Photos! Shiny, glossy photos everywhere!!

Posted in Baseball, Boys Soccer, Softball, Track, tagged baseball, CHS Wolves, John Fisken photos, Soccer, Softball, Track on April 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Jared Dickson leads the charge. (John Fisken photos)

McKayla Bailey is too quick, sliding under the tag.

Stephen Edwards flies.

Josh Bayne goes low to make the play.

Brett Arnold clears the ball from Coupeville’s half of the field.

Breeanna Messner collected three hits and three RBI, while also gunning down an attempted steal, sparking Friday's huge win. (John Fisken photos)

Breeanna Messner eyeballs the runner she’s about to throw out.

Time to clear out some photos.

They’re starting to pile up a bit, so let’s toss out six random pics for a lazy Easter afternoon. They come courtesy travelin’ photo man John Fisken and cover four of Coupeville High School’s six spring sports teams.

I’m short on girls’ tennis and golf pics right now, so that’s the only reason they’re not represented here.

Want to see more?

Head out to a home game this coming week.

Wolf baseball hosts Granite Falls Monday (April 21) and Friday (25), while softball welcomes in the Cascade Conference’s #1 team, Granite Falls, Tuesday.

First pitch 4 PM for all games.

CHS boys’ soccer is at home Tuesday (April 22) against Lakewood (JV 4 PM, varsity 6 PM), while girls’ tennis will play South Whidbey Tuesday (April 22) and Lakewood Thursday (April 24), with both matches starting at 3:30 PM.

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Pandemonium on the prairie!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged Aaron Curtin, baseball, CHS Wolves, CJ Smith, thriller on April 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »

CJ Smith, seen here playing the infield in an earlier game, got the complete game win on the mound for the Wolves Friday. (Shelli Trumbull photos)

CJ Smith (4), seen here playing the infield in an earlier game, got the complete game win on the mound for the Wolves Friday. (Shelli Trumbull photos)

“Run like you wanna make your momma proud, Trumbull!!”

“Speed kills, baby, and we have speed!!”

Coupeville High School baseball coach Willie Smith was ecstatic after the finish of Friday’s thriller against visiting Lakewood, and why not?

Using their fleet feet, and a timely hit or two, his Wolves had just exploded for three runs in the bottom of the seventh to steal a huge 6-5 win.

The victory, the second straight over a 2A biggie, lifted the Wolves back to .500 at 6-6.

They are 5-6 in Cascade Conference play and hot on the heels of South Whidbey for the #1 playoff seed among the league’s 1A schools.

“It was a great testament to the character of this team and the ability of our team to rise up to the challenge of this game!,” Smith said.

With the game on the line, Coupeville made every play count.

Trailing 5-3 and down to their final at-bat, the Wolves put two runners on via a Lakewood error and a walk. Both runners (sophomore CJ Smith and junior Josh Bayne) are quick, and they took advantage of a jumpy Cougar defense.

Jake Tumblin, a speed demon himself, laid down a bunt and beat the pitcher’s throw.

But, instead of just holding on to the ball and accepting a bases-loaded situation, the Lakewood hurler tried to nail Tumblin going into first and accidentally uncorked a throw past the first baseman and down the right field line.

Running full tilt, Smith and Bayne came around to score on the error, knotting the score up.

Tumblin promptly made a bid to win the game in electrifying fashion, stealing home on the next play, but was nipped at the plate by an alert throw.

Instead of settling for the tie and heading into extra innings, Coupeville staged a second rally.

Wade Schaef walked, Ben Etzell blasted a single and Aaron Trumbull reached on a Lakewood error to juice the bases. With two outs, it was then time to go to Church.

Junior Aaron Curtin, who has been battling through a shoulder issue, delivered the sermon and it was a winning one, jacking an RBI single back up the middle to set off the pandemonium on the prairie.

It was the perfect capper to a strong all-around game for Coupeville.

CJ Smith tossed a complete game, whiffing six and giving up just four hits.

With Tumblin’s recent hand injury still preventing him from catching, his back-up, sophomore Cole Payne, was a beast, throwing out four potential base stealers.

“CJ was cool as a cucumber on the mound,” Willie Smith said. “Mixing up pitches and keeping their hitters off-balance throughout the game.”

Coupeville’s speed on the base-paths flustered Lakewood all game, with five of the first six runs being plated thanks to Cougar errors.

Tumblin, Ben Etzell (who paced the Wolves with two hits) and Trumbull represented the early game runs.

The game also marked the varsity debut of freshman Clay Reilly, who got his ticket to the big time punched by a string of injuries to CHS starters.

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