Wolf slugger Madison McMillan abuses the softball. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
Kevin McGranahan stayed busy on a milestone day.
Amid a flurry of lineup changes, his Coupeville High School varsity softball team bashed host La Conner 24-7 in a six-inning affair Thursday afternoon.
The victory, McGranahan’s 90th as CHS head coach, lifts the Wolves to 5-1 in Northwest 2B/1B League play, 7-4 overall heading into a weekend non-conference doubleheader at Onalaska.
The rumble with the Braves came with its own hurdles, as La Conner is winless and while Coupeville wanted to win, it wanted to do so with class and a sense of fair play.
So that kept McGranahan hopping, as he got action for 16 players, including starting three girls who normally come off the bench.
“I mixed up the lineup and tried to get players at least two innings and a couple at-bats for everyone,” he said.
Mixing and matching players left and right, while trying to give scorekeeper Gordon McMillan carpal tunnel syndrome, the CHS softball guru kept things interesting.
Fifteen different Wolves, including three 8th graders, reached base, as Coupeville piled up 14 hits and 17 walks, though McGranahan’s squad limited their base-stealing and taking extra bases.
South Korean foreign exchange student Layla Heo made her first varsity start.
Coupeville jumped out to an 8-0 lead, gave some runs back in the middle innings thanks to some walks and one well-cracked double, then fired up the bats to put things out of reach.
Freshman catcher Teagan Calkins lit up dad Shawn’s Facebook Live stream right from the start, launching a long triple to deep center field to lead off the game.
She soon scampered home on a wild pitch, heading for the camera with a grin on her face, a star made for prime time, as the Wolves slapped six runs on the board in the top of the first inning.
Madison McMillan cracked an RBI double which went to the heavens, high-fived the sun, then dropped back to the field, while her teammates took advantage of La Conner errors to get the offense rolling.
But the Braves proved resilient, limiting Coupeville to just a single run apiece in both the second and third, before scraping together a rally to get within 8-5.
The Wolves pushed it back to 13-5, scoring twice off of wild pitches, once on a bases-loaded walk to Bailey Thule, and twice on a booming double from Calkins snazzy, still-fairly-new bat.
La Conner hung tough, cutting things to 13-7 by the end of the fourth, before McGranahan went back to his starters to emphatically close things out.
CHS pitcher Maya Lucero, who tossed two scoreless innings to open the game, came back around to fling two more lights-out frames, while twin sister Allie pasted a three-run double.
Mia Farris, Sofia Peters, and Gwen Gustafson all had big run-scoring hits in the latter stages of the game, with a nine-run sixth inning finally tipping things into mercy-rule land.
With the win, McGranahan gets to 90-42 as Wolf softball coach.
He’s in his seventh season at the head of the diamond program, though it would be his 8th campaign if the pandemic hadn’t completely erased the 2020 schedule.
Thursday stats:
Capri Anter — Two walks
Haylee Armstrong — One walk
Taylor Brotemarkle — Two walks
Teagan Calkins — One double, one triple, one walk
Mia Farris — Two singles, one double, one walk
Gwen Gustafson — Two singles
Jada Heaton — One double
Allie Lucero — One single, one double
Maya Lucero — One single, two walks
Chloe Marzocca — One single
Madison McMillan — One double, two walks
Melanie Navarro — Three walks
Sofia Peters — One double, one walk
Bailey Thule — One walk
Melanie Wolfe — One walk
