Nicole Laxton, owner of the most positive attitude in all the land, no matter how many times rival pitchers plunk her. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
As you climb the mountain to success, there will be obstacles along the way.
It’s a lesson every team has to learn, and one the Coupeville High School softball squad had reinforced Saturday afternoon in Port Angeles.
Facing their toughest test of the season, the Wolves traveled to “Billy Whiteshoes Memorial Park,” a small gem of an artificial turf-covered diamond nestled in the middle of nowhere, and fought hard through a doubleheader against big-time competition.
Falling to Fife, a 2A school with 600 more students than Coupeville, and Forks, a 1A juggernaut with a roster full of travel ball vets, the Wolves slipped to 4-5 on the season.
But while the non-conference losses sting, the first maybe more than the second, the experience helps set CHS up for the stretch run.
After a week-plus gap in the schedule thanks to spring break, the Wolves begin their pursuit of a second-straight league title in earnest.
Coupeville, which played seven of its last eight games on the road, closes with seven of 10 on Whidbey, with six on its own diamond.
Nine of those games come against North Sound Conference foes, and the Wolves currently sit in a first-place tie with Granite Falls at 2-1 in league play.
Game 1 vs. Fife:
The Trojans, who camp out in the tough 2A South Puget Sound League, are in first-place for a reason, and they showed why Saturday, sweeping to a pair of lopsided wins.
After drilling Seattle Prep 17-4, they turned around and bopped Coupeville 17-1, running their season mark to 6-1, with their only loss to big-timer Lynden.
Wolf freshman hurler Izzy Wells went down fighting, flinging heat and mixing things up, even after being drilled in the leg with a laser shot back up the middle, but a very-experienced foe had few weaknesses.
“Fife hit the ball all over the field,” said CHS coach Kevin McGranahan. “We played pretty good defense … they just hit all the gaps.”
The game was close for an inning, with a home-run to center staking Fife to an early 2-0 lead.
But the second inning, when the Trojans sent 14 hitters to the plate, and brought eight of them around, was a killer.
Tack on a 13-batter, seven-run fourth inning, and the fact Coupeville stifled Fife in the third and fifth innings, holding them scoreless, was nice, but not a game-saver.
The Wolves struggled to get their own offense going against a Trojan pitcher who had one speed – fast – and one way of throwing – scary hard.
The first CHS player to get on board was Mackenzie Davis, who led off the bottom of the third by reaching on an error, but she was quickly erased thanks to a wham-bam double play.
Emma Mathusek finally broke up the no-hitter with a one-out single to center in the fourth, only to have Fife immediately pull off another double play when its first-baseman robbed Chelsea Prescott, spearing a wicked liner headed for her chin.
Coupeville’s other two hits came in the fifth, thanks to Veronica Crownover rocketing a single off of the bag at second and one mighty swing from Sarah Wright.
The senior catcher led off the inning by taking Fife’s hurler deep, depositing her second home run of the year over the right field fence, out where a friendly pack of dogs spent a chunk of the day romping in the sunshine.
The rest of the day, the dogs camped out in the Coupeville dugout, looking for tasty treats, head rubs, and an invitation to get on the bus and go to Subway.
Game 2 vs. Forks:
No one really wants a moral victory, but this certainly falls into that category.
The Spartans come from the Evergreen League, the toughest 1A softball league in the state, and last year they savaged Coupeville, sweeping a doubleheader to the tune of 12-0 and 12-0.
This time around, after drilling Seattle Prep 11-1, Forks had a lot more trouble with the Wolves, escaping with an 8-4 win which was even closer than the score might sound.
Watching his team go toe-to-toe with their vaunted foes put a small smile, but still a smile, on McGranahan’s face.
“This year we played them tough and showed that we can play with big, bad District 4,” he said. “We had a lot of good takeaways today and are now shifting focus to the rest of our league schedule.”
After falling behind 3-0 early, the Wolves got their bats going much quicker in the nightcap, coming back to knot the game up with a run in the first, and two more in the second.
Coupeville’s first run came courtesy a walk to Mathusek, a single by Prescott, and a long double thumped to center by the still-sizzlin’ Wright.
The Wolves got even more creative in their half of the second, using a little bit of razzle-dazzle to plate two runs.
Walks to Audrianna Shaw and Nicole Laxton set the scene, an infield single by a hard-charging Scout Smith loaded the bags, before a Mathusek sac fly and an airmailed throw into center by the Forks catcher brought the runners around.
Laxton, the undisputed master at wearing the ball, sacrificed her body for her free pass, getting plunked, or “Nicoled,” as it’s known in the biz, for the 389,512th time this season.
The Forks pitcher, who may not have had the power of Fife’s hurler, was still hyper-efficient most of the day, and she shut down the Wolves after that, retiring seven straight while her hitters slowly chipped away.
By the time Coupeville got its next runner on, thanks to a fifth-inning lead-off Mathusek single, it trailed 7-3.
While Mathusek scampered around the bags, eventually tapping home after an RBI single by Wright, it would prove to be the final rally for the Wolves.
Shaw, a freshman who made several strong catches in the outfield, hammered a sixth-inning single, but that was it, with Forks ending the game by flinging back-to-back strikeouts in the seventh.
After compiling just three hits and no walks in the opener, Coupeville had six hits and four walks in the second game.
Smith, taking the place of Wells in the pitcher’s circle, kept Forks guessing as she mixed and matched speeds, while Prescott had a superb dig on a hard smash to short to end a rally.
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