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Concrete done got crunched!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged baseball, Ben Etzell, CHS Wolves, Korbin Korzan, Morgan Payne on March 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Korbin Korzan threw three shutout innings Thursday, striking out five. (Shelli Trumbull photos)

Aaron Trumbull and teammates were all smiles, again, after rapping out 14 hits.

The bats were smokin’.

A long bus trip did nothing to slow down the Coupeville High School baseball squad Thursday, as it banged out 14 hits en route to a 13-0 romp at Concrete.

Scoring in each of the first four innings, while hurlers Ben Etzell and Korbin Korzan combined on a one-hit, 11-strikeout gem, the Wolves made quick work of their non-conference foes, getting off the field in just five innings.

The win lifted Coupeville to 3-1 on the season, with one more non-conference game (Saturday at Nooksack Valley) before it faces off with Cascade Conference biggie Archbishop Thomas Murphy.

Wolf coach Willie Smith came away from Thursday’s game with a huge smile plastered on his face, pleased with every facet of his team’s performance.

“It was a great game for us: pitching, defense, and hitting,” Smith said. “It was great to see us come out and score early and often and hit the ball consistently and hard.

“We played like we were the better team and we never let off the gas until the last out, which was very encouraging.”

Coupeville never offered their former league rivals — from back in the Northwest League days — a chance.

Etzell was nasty from the first pitch, striking out all six hitters he faced.

He turned the ball over to Korzan to start the third, and the junior was spot-on. He whiffed five, while surrendering just one lonely hit.

“Korbin really established his fastball and then began mixing in his off-speed pitches,” Smith said. “It was a great outing for him and for us because he can be a major factor for us on the mound if he continues to throw with the confidence and control he’s shown in his two outings so far.”

At the plate, the Wolves hit everything that came their way.

Kurtis Smith, Aaron Curtin and Etzell each rapped out three hits, while Aaron Trumbull and Morgan Payne swatted two apiece. Payne, Etzell and Smith all collected doubles.

Payne was the leader of the pack on the RBI chart with four, while Smith and Etzell both knocked in three.

“We hit the ball throughout our lineup and there wasn’t really any cheap hits,” Smith said. “They were all hit hard and even our outs were hit hard at them.

“I’m pretty excited about where we are at right now and the focus that we have.”

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Bombs away! Wolf JV romps to big win!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged baseball, CHS Wolves, Ethan Marx, Gabe Wynn, Mariano Rivera on March 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »

CJ Smith, about to take off for another stolen base. (Shelli Trumbull photos)

Ethan Marx cleared the bases with a three-run single in the first Saturday.

Cole Payne slams the door shut on the Falcons.

It was over quick.

The Coupeville High School JV baseball squad came out swinging the big sticks Saturday morning, pounding away for seven runs in the first two innings on its way to an 8-5 win over visiting South Whidbey.

The home game, coming on a cold, crisp, thankfully non-windy day on the prairie, was the first of the season for the young Wolves, and the first JV baseball game in several seasons for CHS.

With a pack of freshmen having turned out this year, Coupeville coach Willie Smith has two squads for the first time in the last four seasons.

And, with all of the varsity players on hand to offer frequent and vocal encouragement to their younger counterparts, the continued growth of the CHS program took another big step forward.

The offensive attack was on-point from the first batter for the Wolves, as sophomore Cole Payne thumped a lead-off double to straight-away center field.

After a passed ball moved Payne to third, he skipped home on an RBI single from CJ Smith, who promptly stole second himself. Walks to Kyle Bodamer and Clay Reilly juiced the bags, and then the runs really started coming.

Gabe Wynn slapped an RBI single up the middle to give Coupeville a 2-1 lead, then fellow frosh Ethan Marx unloaded with a shot down the right field line, clearing the bases.

The third guy coming home, Wynn hit the ground hard, sliding around a sweeping tag from the Falcon catcher and smacking his hand emphatically on the plate with his team’s fifth run.

The Wolves added two more in the second, when junior Korban Korzan crunched an RBI double, then later scored on a passed ball. Wynn capped the scoring in the fourth with an RBI on a sacrifice fly.

With CHS not having a full nine-man JV roster, Korzan and fellow junior Aaron Trumbull came down from the varsity to get brief stints in on the mound. The duo combined with freshman Jonathan Thurston and Payne to share mound time.

Payne, channeling his inner Mariano Rivera, slammed the door shut in the seventh. With the bases loaded, he recorded back-to-back strikeouts to end the threat and earn the save.

The game marked the high school debut of Wynn, Thurston, Reilly, Marx, Jimmy Myers and Aiden Crimmins.

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Heartbreaker on the diamond!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged baseball, CHS Wolves, Josh Bayne, South Whidbey, walkoff win on March 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Josh Bayne had three hits and three RBI Friday. (John Fisken photo)

Aaaaaaaa-goooooooo-nyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Three outs away from a sweep of its season-opening three-game series against arch-rival South Whidbey, the Coupeville High School baseball squad couldn’t get the door all the way slammed.

Instead, they surrendered four runs in the bottom of the seventh Friday, losing 10-9 on a walk-off, two-out, two-run single.

Still, the Wolves, now 2-1 on the season, did win the series and will hold a tiebreaker over the Falcons, the only other 1A school to play baseball in the Cascade Conference. King’s doesn’t play baseball, while the other five league schools are 2A.

Coupeville will hit the road for non-conference games at Concrete and Nooksack Valley next week before returning to league play against the biggest baddie in all the land, Archbishop Thomas Murphy.

The game started slowly Friday, got pretty awesome for a stretch, then slipped away piece by piece.

The Wolves went with sophomore CJ Smith on the mound, and he didn’t have the command he had shown out of the bullpen in a CHS win Thursday.

After a rough first inning, in which he surrendered three runs, he settled down, but trailed 4-0 when he turned the ball over to Wade Schaef in the fourth.

After scraping together a run on an Aaron Trumbull double and Kurtis Smith single, Coupeville seemingly blew the game open with an eight-run fifth inning.

The Wolves used three hits, five walks and a crucial South Whidbey error to amass the runs. Morgan Payne (two-run single) and Josh Bayne (three-run double) delivered the biggest blows.

With Schaef cruising into the sixth inning, Coupeville seemed primed for the sweep, but the plucky Falcons refused to go away.

South Whidbey cut the margin to 9-6 going into the seventh, then jumped on mental errors by the Wolves to get two more in the bottom of the seventh.

Clinging to a 9-8 lead, with runners at second and third and two outs, Coupeville still had a chance to escape.

But it wasn’t to be, as the Falcon cleanup hitter became a hometown hero with a textbook single into left center to score the tying and winning runs.

Bayne paced the Wolves with three hits and three RBI, while Trumbull added two hits and two runs.

While he would have preferred getting back on the bus with a win, CHS coach Willie Smith came away mostly pleased with how his team handled the season-opening series.

“Although we lost, we did take the series and we had a lot of good things happen over the past three games,” Smith said. “We still have some work to do, as we struck out far too much today, mostly looking, and we still need to be able to put a team away when we have them on the ropes.

“But I feel like we put ourselves in a good position league-wise,” he added. “The areas we need to work on are definitely areas which we can fix.”

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Wolves silence Falcon bats!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged Aaron Curtin, baseball, CHS Wolves, CJ Smith, rivalry win, Wade Schaef on March 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Wolf catcher Jake Tumblin called a good game Thursday, as CHS pitchers (John Fisken photo)

Wolf catcher Jake Tumblin called a good game Thursday, then chipped in at the plate with two hits and three stolen bases. (John Fisken photo)

Church was in session Thursday, and the sermon was all about denial.

Coupeville High School hurler Aaron “Church” Curtin was flingin’ smoke, and backed by an opportunistic defense, he shut down visiting South Whidbey to a 6-1 tune.

The second straight win over their Island arch-rivals, it lifted the Wolves to a glossy 2-0 on the young season and clinched the tie-breaker between the only two 1A schools playing baseball in the Cascade Conference.

While Coupeville still has another 18 regular season games to play, 16 in league play (including a game in Langley Friday), it doesn’t hurt to know that, if it comes down to it, the Wolves will have an edge when playoff berths are decided.

“Well, it certainly helps, but we still need to finish ahead of them in league, so a long ways to go until it’s completely secured,” said a low-key CHS coach Willie Smith.

If Curtin keeps pitching like he did in his first outing of the season, following on the heels of strong work from Ben Etzell in the opener, it’s just going to get better for Coupeville.

“Aaron pitched a heckuva game,” Smith said.

Curtin struck out six over six innings and effectively scattered five hits, spacing them out where they did little damage.

When the Falcons did get bat on ball, the Wolf defense was ready.

Etzell went airborne to snag a screaming liner, then doubled a runner off of second for an inning-ending double play.

Then Wade Schaef topped him with “an ESPN highlight reel play,” laying out on a dead run to grab a liner at his shoestrings, snatching away a huge hit at a time when CHS was clinging to a one-run lead.

Schaef also swung a huge bat for the Wolves, crunching a double and knocking home three runs.

The whole lineup clicked, with Korbin Korzan thumping a double and Jake Tumblin racking up two hits and three stolen bases. Korzan, Tumblin and Morgan Payne each had an RBI, while Etzell and Josh Bayne also collected steals.

Coming into the season, pitching was a strong suit for the Wolves, with Etzell, Curtin, Aaron Trumbull, Bayne, Schaef and others forming a strong staff. But that staff may be even deeper than thought.

Sophomore CJ Smith, who transferred to Coupeville during basketball season, made his debut on the mound in the seventh and closed the game with a bang. Facing the top of the order for the Falcons, he retired them one-two-three on just eight pitches.

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No games for you!!

Posted in Baseball, Softball, tagged baseball, CHS Wolves, Singin in the Rain, Softball on March 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »

There will come a day when Madeline Strasburg and Co. get to play a softball game. That day was not today. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

The sun is out, but no one is playing.

The after effects of rain washed away both scheduled Coupeville High School games Wednesday afternoon.

The Wolf baseball squad was supposed to welcome South Whidbey to town for the middle game of a three-game season opening series, but, even with the rain having stopped earlier in the day, the CHS field was not recovered enough for play.

Or, Coupeville coach Willie Smith just misses the warmth of a gym.

“It’s cold and windy and muddy and I’m older and wimpier … and it’s cold!!!,” Smith wailed, while giggling.

The game has been rescheduled for Thursday (4 PM), which will bump the JV baseball game planned for that day. That game will likely jump to Saturday, if things work out.

The tweaking puts baseball up against softball, as the CHS fast pitch squad will attempt (again) to open its season Thursday (also 4 PM), when it also hosts South Whidbey.

The softballers were turned away from a trip to Port Townsend Monday when that school’s infield disappeared underwater.

Tuesday they were supposed to host South Whidbey, but a scheduling snafu with Friday Harbor bumped that game to Thursday.

A trip to Archbishop Thomas Murphy Wednesday fell through due to weather, so try #4 will come Thursday.

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