Sarah Wright cracked an inside-the-park two-run home-run Saturday as Coupeville softball pasted Meridian 11-1. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
It was a message, loud and clear.
Playing under blue skies on the prairie Saturday, the Coupeville High School softball team put visiting Meridian down hard, rolling to an 11-1 win thanks to a hail of extra-base hits.
In the moment, it’s just one win, and a non-conference one at that, but it was a warning to a school the Wolves might face in the playoffs, and a shot in general across the bow of the Northwest Conference.
Now 7-6, after winning for the third time in its last four games, Coupeville first turns its attention to chasing a league title.
The Wolves are nipping at the heels of North Sound Conference leader Granite Falls, and begin a final six-game stretch of regular-season contests with games Monday and Tuesday against cellar dwellers Sultan and South Whidbey.
After that comes the district playoffs, an eight-team double-elimination tourney May 16 & 18, which pits the five NSC teams against the four NWC squads in the pursuit of three tickets to state.
Coupeville has its win against Meridian, and a narrow 9-6 loss at Lynden Christian, but doesn’t face Mount Baker or Nooksack Valley during the regular season.
The game against Meridian was delayed a week by rain, and the weather looked iffy for much of Saturday morning.
But five minutes before the first pitch, the clouds peeled away, the sun came pouring in, followed soon after by a never-ending stream of bubbles from somewhere around the first-base dugout, and the Wolves started flexing their biceps.
In the early going, CHS showed off an uncanny ability to deliver the goods with no room for error, building a lead it would never relinquish.
With Emma Mathusek rocking back and forth at first-base after eking out a walk, the Wolves dropped three consecutive two-out RBI base-knocks, using all three parts of the field.
Sarah Wright smashed a single to center, Mollie Bailey lobbed a single to right, then Veronica Crownover pasted a double to left, leaving Meridian’s pitcher reeling, and trailing 3-0 on the scoreboard.
While the Trojans eventually got out of that jam thanks to a nice snag to rob Nicole Laxton on a liner, things had been set in motion.
Coupeville added another run in the third, on a two-out Crownover RBI single, before smashing things open in the fourth inning.
Scout Smith cracked a majestic, run-scoring double to kick things off, then came around to score herself on a Chelsea Prescott ground-out.
Meridian tried to pull off an inning-ending double play on the ball, but Smith, pulling off some Matrix-style moves, limbo’d under the tag to the delight of her boisterous fan section.
Not only did her heroics add another run to the big board, they kept the inning alive, giving Sarah Wright a chance to go big time.
Coupeville’s catcher got a day off behind the plate, playing third while Bailey caught, so her legs might have been a little more limber than if she had been crouched down all day.
Or maybe she’s just that quick all the time.
Tagging a shot to right field, Wright hit maximum warp speed three steps towards the first-base bag and never let up, crashing around the base-paths for a legit two-run, inside-the-park home run.
Her third tater of the season (the first two cleared the fence) it staked the Wolves to an 8-0 lead and raised the idea of the 10-run mercy rule being visible on the horizon.
It would take a little bit longer to get there, though, as Meridian snuffed out a rally in the fifth.
The Trojans robbed Laxton for a second time, intercepting a missile back up the middle and turning it into a surprise double-play.
The visitors also scraped together a single, lonely run in the top of the sixth, thanks to a couple of walks and a couple of artfully-placed bunts, but Coupeville’s defense remained stingy.
Freshman hurler Izzy Wells, who whiffed five (and drilled one unlucky Trojan with an especially nasty, tear-inducing fastball gone rogue) made a nice play on a liner back to the circle.
Very next pitch, it was Crownover’s turn to snag a hot shot in the air at first-base, and, just like that, Meridian’s scoring was over and done.
While they couldn’t end the game in five innings, the Wolves got the job done in the sixth, plating the first three hitters to approach the plate.
Wells conked a double to left to lead off the frame, bouncing the ball off the wall on one hop, before Smith hammered an RBI single up the middle, and Emma Mathusek got medieval.
Moments before being asked to Prom by CHS baseball star Gavin Knoblich, the Wolf center-fielder thumped an RBI triple and almost (but not quite) made the turn like she wanted to match Wright’s inside-the-park round-tripper.
Mathusek got to come home a moment later, anyway, as Prescott once again put the ball exactly in the right place.
While she didn’t get a base hit on the day, the sophomore shortstop placed both of her RBI ground-outs precisely where the Meridian fielder was unable to nail the runner coming home.
If Mathusek’s slide into home wasn’t as graceful as the one by Smith, it was still pretty dang crowd-pleasing.
Rumbling and stumbling, she did the world’s most-awkward, yet effective, half-cartwheel, reaching back to tap her hand on the plate as she crashed by in a tangle of body parts.
The final run capped a day in which eight of 10 Wolves reached base, six had hits, and six collected RBI’s.
Smith (2B, 1B), Crownover (2B, 1B) and Wright (1B, 1B, HR) led the hit parade, with Mathusek (3B), Wells (2B), and Bailey (1B) all collecting base-knocks.
Chloe Wheeler and Mackenzie Davis both walked, while Prescott racked up two RBI, joining Wright (3), Crownover (2), Smith (2), Mathusek (1), and Bailey (1) as run-producers.
And Laxton, who was flat-out robbed twice of big hits by quick (and lucky) Meridian gloves, and Coral Caveness, in street clothes as she recovers from being drilled in the funny bone a game earlier?
They sung as loudly as anyone in the post-game victory song, smiles stretching across the prairie, basking in the glow of their teammate’s achievements and ready to get some of their own next time out.
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