Clay Reilly, seen here on Senior Night, had Coupeville’s only hit Tuesday in a 2-1 playoff loss. (John Fisken photo)
We’ve seen this story before.
Two gunslingers working the mound on a sunny prairie afternoon, trading zeroes back and forth in a loser-out district playoff game.
And while one of the teams, and both pitchers, were different Tuesday than they were back in 2015, the result was the same — an agonizing one-run loss for the Coupeville High School baseball squad on its home diamond.
This time around, it was Bellevue Christian, and not Cascade Christian, which ended any hopes the Wolves had of contending for state glory.
Powered by the golden pitching arm of junior Eric Kats, who tossed a one-hit, eight-strikeout gem, the Vikings survived a seventh-inning crisis and escaped Whidbey with a 2-1 win.
The victory propels BC (8-10) into the double-elimination portion of districts — three of those four teams will punch a ticket to state — where it will meet Seattle Christian.
Klahowya, the Olympic League champ, plays Cascade Christian, which eliminated Chimacum 2-1 Tuesday afternoon.
Coupeville finishes 11-9.
A game where every one of the three (unearned) runs greatly mattered and where little miscues were unfortunately magnified, CHS coach Chris Smith could only shake his head afterwards.
“I love one-run games, love them … when we win,” he said with a soft smile. “It was a great baseball game. That’s why we play them. Just came down to the little things and we came up a little bit short.”
Still, he was pleased with the effort of his own pitcher, junior Hunter Smith, who whiffed five and gave BC few opportunities.
“Very, very happy with how he pitched,” Chris Smith said.
Coupeville has six seniors, three of whom were in the starting lineup.
Center fielder Clay Reilly, who had the most sustained success of any of the seniors over the past four years, lashed the only Wolf hit, a screamer down the left field line in the bottom of the first.
He also walked and scored Coupeville’s lone run.
Kats and Hunter Smith were lights out at the start, each giving up just a solitary base-knock through the first two innings.
BC couldn’t get its lone runner past first, though, while the Wolves stranded Reilly at second.
When the Vikings broke through in the top of the third, they did so without really doing much of anything special.
A Coupeville defense that was otherwise pretty spot-on had a rare lapse, committing two crucial errors, one on a misplayed grounder, the other on a throw that skipped under the glove at third.
That allowed a Bellevue runner who should have been out at least two, if not three times, to skip home with the game’s first run, then the Vikings plated a second man on a long sac fly to the deepest part of right field.
After that, Hunter Smith retired 12 of the final 16 hitters, allowing only one runner past first base from the fourth through the seventh.
The only problem was Kats, who was mixing up three to four different pitches very effectively, was keeping Coupeville’s hitters at bay.
The Wolves finally plopped a run on the scoreboard (no wait, the CHS scoreboard doesn’t work…) in the fourth, when Reilly walked, moved to second on a bunt by Julian Welling, then scooted home on a two-out grounder off the bat of Dane Lucero.
It actually looked like Reilly’s run wouldn’t count, however, as the field ump initially called Lucero out on a bang-bang play.
After a discussion with the home plate ump, though, the call was overturned, Kats was charged with an error and Coupeville pulled within 2-1.
Bellevue Christian didn’t ruffle easily, though, and escaped on a two-out fly to center.
Down to their final two outs in the bottom of the seventh, the Wolves snapped their fans to attention, with what looked like it might be the kind of late-game rally on which legends are built.
Kory Score and Joey Lippo reached base on back-to-back errors in which the Viking infielders flat-out booted the ball and the tying and winning runs were in play.
It wasn’t to be, though as Viking catcher Cade Peterson, a freshman with the longest, silkiest locks of hair this side of a fashion runway, came up firing and threw Score out at third to blow out the embers before the fire could fully ignite.
The game ended, appropriately enough, on a final strikeout by Kats, and, even in defeat, it would be hard for even the most die-hard Wolf fan to not acknowledge the Viking hurler was superb on this day.
While Coupeville will lose Reilly, Score, Taylor Consford, Ethan Marx, Jonathan Thurston and Aiden Crimmins, it should return much of its core.
Chris Smith, who went 7-6 after taking over as head coach mid-way through the season when Marc Aparicio resigned, is already looking ahead.
“This is one of those games where you learn from the things that went wrong and erase those mistakes and come back strong next year. Tough one for our seniors, though.”
