New Coupeville softball coach Deanna Rafferty. (John Fisken photos)
Hailey Hammer is completing an amazing run in which she played varsity in three sports for all four years of high school.
Hope Lodell is part of a pack of confident, aggressive freshmen used to success on the softball diamond.
New coach, same expectations.
Former Oak Harbor High School player Deanna Rafferty has taken the reigns of the CHS softball squad, but she plans to take her team right back to where David and Amy King brought it a season ago.
Then the Wolves broke a 12-year drought, advancing to the state tourney for the first time since 2002.
Now, even having lost six starters, Rafferty sees no reason why Coupeville can’t repeat that trip.
“My goals for the season are a state playoff,” she said. “I know for a fact that this team has the potential for a state playoff and if we accept anything less, we’re underselling ourselves as a team.”
Coupeville lost catcher Breeanna Messner, left fielder Haley Sherman and shortstop Madeline Roberts to graduation.
Toss in three players lost to family moves — Emily Licence (3B), Emily Coulter (2B) and Erin Josue (utility) — and Madeline Strasburg’s (CF) decision to not play her senior season, and the Wolves have holes.
But they do retain two of their top players in senior pitcher/shortstop McKayla Bailey, who is returning from surgery, and big-hitting senior Hailey Hammer, who is moving from first to third.
Three other players who saw considerable playing time last year also return, with senior Monica Vidoni sliding in from right field to man first base.
Sophomores Tiffany Briscoe (OF) and Jae LeVine (2B) are also back.
While the Wolves won’t have a ton of veterans, they do have an especially strong core of young players.
Freshmen Katrina McGranahan (P/IF), Hope Lodell (OF), Lauren Rose (C) and Heather Nastali (OF) and sophomore Robin Cedillo (OF) all played for a Central Whidbey Little League Juniors All-Star softball squad that went 18-2 and advanced to state.
Freshman Kyla Briscoe (P, IF) and sophomore Jasmine Melena (OF) are also in the mix.
It’s a lineup with some pop in its bats.
Bailey and Hammer have power, while the freshmen are fearless and decimated opponents by double digits in nearly all of their summer victories.
“The strengths of the team are our hitting,” Rafferty said. “We have a strong lineup with great power and precision.”
One area of concern is the team’s pitching.
If the flame-throwing Bailey, who threw almost every inning in 2014, is fully recovered from shoulder surgery, Coupeville could be golden.
If she’s not, there’s no veteran star like Maria Rockwell or Alexis Trumbull to share mound time, as in previous seasons.
It would be all freshmen, all the time.
“The main area that any team could always improve on is more pitching,” Rafferty said. “We have one pitcher coming off a previous injury and a freshman (McGranahan) pitcher.
“I think the more pitchers the better, so we are currently working with a new freshman (Kyla Briscoe) on pitching in hopes of creating one other pitching option.”
Having jumped from the 2A/1A Cascade Conference to the 1A Olympic League, swapping out ATM for Chimacum, Port Townsend and Klahowya, the Wolves and their new coach are excited to keep the school’s recent success going.
“I think the new jump is great,” Rafferty said. “We, as a team, get to create a new name for ourselves amongst our new opponents.”
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