Jada Heaton celebrated her birthday by delivering big hits. (Photo courtesy Jennifer Heaton)
It was an all-day bash-a-thon.
Fueled by hot dogs donated by Prairie Center, and enough cookies, chips, and drinks to ward off the often-bitter prairie wind, three strong varsity softball teams waged battle Saturday.
Coupeville, looking to play a tough non-league schedule to prepare for potential playoff action, emerged from its hosting duties with an admirable split.
The Wolves rallied late to put a scare into Forks, which finished 3rd at the 2B state championships last year, before falling 15-9.
Then, after a break, CHS returned to the diamond and pasted 1A Granite Falls 12-9, busting the game open with an eight-run explosion in the bottom of the fourth inning.
In between, Forks polished off Granite Falls 13-5, earning a nod of approval from Ron Bagby, doing his best to balance his long coaching and teaching tenure in Coupeville with the fact his niece currently hucks fastballs for Forks, his alma mater.
With the split against non-conference foes, the Wolves, who had an 8th grader, a freshman, and five sophomores on the field Saturday, get to 3-2 and pick up a ton of experience.
And they did it while getting hits from all 11 players who had an at-bat, while 9 of the 12 girls to step on the field scored.
How the day played out:
Forks:
Squaring off with a lineup which delivered hits top to bottom, Coupeville found itself fighting from behind all afternoon.
Forks punched across four runs in the top of the first, with the Wolves immediately responding with two of their own in the bottom of the frame.
Freshman catcher Teagan Calkins beat out an infield single to get things kick-started, with Madison McMillan delivering the first of her five base knocks on the day, thanks to an RBI single to right field.
Madison McMillan can kill you with her bat or her glove. (Jackie Saia photo)
After a scoreless second, with both squads stranding runners, the game took a bad turn in the top of the third.
Forks took advantage of some rare Wolf mistakes to pile up seven runs in the inning, with four of the scores coming with two outs on the board.
The Wolves put runners at second and third in the bottom of the frame, but couldn’t bring anyone in, and watched as an 11-2 deficit stretched to 13-2 heading into the bottom of the fifth.
Faced with being ten-runned, it would have been easy for the Wolves to have shrugged, given in, and headed off to lunch.
Instead, they made a ferocious stand, with some of the biggest plays coming from somewhat unheralded players.
Coupeville scored five runs in the fifth to stay alive, and the big blows came from a sophomore celebrating her birthday and an 8th grader collecting her first high school RBI’s before she even attends classes at the school.
Jada Heaton, a fireball force of nature who keeps her teammates spirits high, three sports a year, cracked a two-run single to earn her Sweet 16 birthday cake.
Two batters later, middle school ace Haylee Armstrong, never betraying her youth, calmly found her pitch, and smashed a two-run double, earning a double fist-pump from Wolf coach Kevin McGranahan.
“Love to see that!” said the diamond guru later, while reflecting on Heaton and Armstrong’s coolness under pressure.
Back within 13-7, Coupeville shut down Forks in the sixth, then scored two more runs to really tighten things up.
Back at the plate for a return engagement, Heaton got artistic, reaching out and muscling a ball over the first baseman’s head, the ball curving and splashing down just inside the line, causing the Wolf bench to go bonkers.
Forks is a rock-solid squad, though, and the Spartans closed things out, a long home run to straightaway centerfield taking a bit of the wind out of Coupeville’s sails in the closing moments.
But sometimes a close loss to a great team is far better than a blowout win over a weak squad, and their comeback seemed to light a fire under the Wolves.
Granite Falls:
With clouds moving in and daylight running away, the third game of the day moved fairly quickly.
It was a chess match early on, with Granite clinging to a 4-3 lead after three innings, even with McMillan and Melanie Navarro walloping back-to-back RBI triples at one point.
Maybe even more electrifying was Mia Farris coming in hot, getting down ‘n dirty as she slid under the catcher’s tag to score on a bang-bang play at the plate.
All of that set up the fourth inning, which started ugly, then got beautiful.
For the only time all day, Coupeville fell apart for several minutes, botching plays, chafing their coach, and allowing four runs to score despite starting things by having two outs with no one on base.
But the Wolves snapped back and snapped back in style.
Trailing 8-3 headed to the bottom of the fourth, Coupeville ran through the lineup, sending 13 hitters to the plate and bringing eight of them around to score.
Sofia Peters drove a single to center with two strikes, then everyone started whacking the ball.
Gwen Gustafson, Calkins, McMillan, and both Allie and Maya Lucero came up with RBI hits, with Maya Lucero delivering her team’s third triple of the game.
Maya Lucero played strongly Saturday on offense and defense. (Jackie Saia photo)
In the madness, pinch runner Chloe Marzocca sprinted home with a key run, and Taylor Brotemarkle’s speed caused a Granite defender to boot a ball which denied the Tigers a much needed out.
“Taylor B. comin’ home!!” is her new war cry — one rival teams will likely come to fear.
With the lead in hand, the prairie wind having receded, at least a bit, and free cookies waiting to go home with me, the Wolves closed things in style.
Flinging BB’s into the rapidly approaching dusk, Wolf hurler Allie Lucero largely shut down the Tigers over the final three innings, and she got help from her defense, which threw out a runner at the plate to provide the exclamation point.
Saturday stats:
Haylee Armstrong — One double
Taylor Brotemarkle — Two singles, one double, one walk
Teagan Calkins — Three singles, one walk
Mia Farris — One single, one double, one walk
Gwen Gustafson — Five singles
Jada Heaton — Two singles
Allie Lucero — One single, one walk
Maya Lucero — One triple
Madison McMillan — Three singles, one double, one triple, one walk
Melanie Navarro — One triple
Sofia Peters — One single
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Coupeville Sports 