Starting behind the plate while Jake Tumblin is injured, sophomore Cole Payne caught Ben Etzell’s no-hitter Monday. (Shelli Trumbull photo)
It was the no-hitter almost no one noticed at first.
Only after the assembled members of the press got done talking about the chocolate chip cookies provided by Coupeville High School baseball coach Willie Smith — they were delicious, I might add — did someone finally notice what Wolf senior Ben Etzell had just accomplished Monday afternoon.
While visiting Lakewood had its share of base-runners (four by walk and two by error), the Cougars never got a single hit off the CHS hurler during Coupeville’s wind-blown 1-0 victory.
Dominant when he needed to be — taking down the final nine batters he faced, five by strikeout — this time Etzell came out on top in a 1-0 game played on the prairie.
The win lifted the Wolves to 5-6 overall, 4-6 in Cascade Conference play and started the second half of the season with a smile on everyone’s faces.
Even with starters Jake Tumblin and Aaron Curtin limited by injuries and the team still struggling to find a consistent offensive rhythm, the pitching is on fire and the remaining schedule is ripe for the plucking.
With Etzell striking out eight and Morgan Payne making a string of sensational plays on balls hit to third, Coupeville only needed one run, and, after a spirited mid-game “pep talk” from Smith, the Wolves delivered.
Aaron Trumbull led off the bottom of the fifth with Coupeville’s first hit, a booming double into deep right field.
Kurtis Smith followed with a strong at-bat, eventually moving Trumbull to third on a perfectly placed fielder’s choice, before the ol’ ball coach reached into his bag of tricks.
With Korbin Korzan, a left-handed hitter, at the plate, Willie Smith sent Trumbull on a suicide squeeze and things played out to perfection.
Korzan dropped a beauty of a bunt that pulled the Lakewood defense just far enough out of the way and Trumbull, hauling butt down the third base line, slid in under the tag.
It was a bang-bang play, but there was little doubt the Wolf junior got across the plate, as the Cougar coaches never even bothered to argue.
There was little to be heard from the Lakewood bleachers, since they were completely empty on a cold, windy day in which every gust sent pieces of infield dirt into the Cougar dugout.
With a rare lead — a week ago Etzell struck out 15 in eight innings, only to see his squad fall 1-0 in the ninth as he sat on the bench — Coupeville’s #1 hurler closed the game strongly.
Three of the final six outs came via strikeout — two swinging — while Payne pulled off back-to-back gems on balls hit down the line at third to open the sixth.
Lakewood had runners at third three straight innings, but each time Coupeville clamped down.
Payne snuffed the threat in the third, while Etzell denied Lakewood with inning-ending strikeouts in the fourth and fifth.
The fourth was the only inning in which he had brief control problems, walking the bags full before reaching down for a punch-out pitch.
Other than Trumbull’s double, the game’s only other hit came from Wolf junior Josh Bayne, who cracked a single under the third baseman’s glove and into left to lead off the sixth.
The two squads tangle again Wednesday in Lakewood, then return to Whidbey for the series finale 4 PM Friday.
Curtin, Coupeville’s #2 pitcher, has a shoulder issue, and CJ Smith and Bayne will each slide up a slot to start games two and three in the series.
Tumblin, the Wolf catcher, has a sprain that affects his throwing arm and is being replaced by Cole Payne behind the plate for a few games.
He’s able to swing a bat, however, and is remaining in the lineup as a super-speedy DH.
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