Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘hit machine’

Timberrrr!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , , on April 27, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Scott Hilborn whacked four hits Thursday afternoon. (Morgan White photo)

They might want to build a storm shelter in Darrington.

Why?

To protect the locals from the kind of missiles being rained down Thursday afternoon.

The red-hot ‘n rollin’ Coupeville High School varsity baseball squad was in town and smashed 19 hits on its way to a 16-6 win before departing town in a blaze of glory.

Twelve different Wolves collected a base knock during the decimation, even with the game mercy-ruled after five innings, as CHS won for the ninth time in its last 10 tilts.

Now 11-1 in Northwest 2B/1B League play, 13-4 overall, Coupeville heads home for Senior Night Saturday, when it hosts La Conner (3-9, 4-11).

First pitch is 1:00 PM.

With three regular season games left, and two of those conference clashes, the Wolves have clinched the #1 seed for the District 1/2 tournament, and are tied with Mount Vernon Christian (11-1, 12-3) atop the NWL.

Facing off with a decent Darrington squad — the Loggers are a solid .500 team — CHS abused its hosts all afternoon.

The Wolves pushed four runs across in the top of the first, added a single tally in the second, then broke the game wide-open by slapping eight runs on the board in the third.

Three more visitors tapped home plate in the top of the fourth, stretching the lead all the way out to 16-1.

While the Loggers chipped away at the lead late, it came only after Coupeville coach Steve Hilborn cleared his bench.

The Wolves used two of their three freshman hurlers, with starter Coop Cooper whiffing six in three innings of work, while Camden Glover followed with two punch-outs across two frames.

Fab frosh Coop Cooper slings strikes. (Morgan White photo)

Freshman catcher Chase Anderson threw out a pair of would-be base stealers, keeping Darrington honest, while the Wolves strung together hit after hit while at the plate.

Five of the knocks went for extra bases, with senior slugger Scott Hilborn leading the way with two doubles and a bombastic triple.

Young gun Glover and grizzled vet Jonathan Valenzuela each added a two-bagger, with every Wolf starter, and three back-ups, collecting hits.

 

Thursday stats:

Chase Anderson — Two singles
Peyton Caveness — One single, one walk
Coop Cooper — Two singles, one walk
Jaje Drake — One single, one walk
Camden Glover — One double, one walk
Scott Hilborn — One single, two doubles, one triple, one walk
Aiden O’Neill — One single
Jack Porter — Two singles
Johnny Porter — One single
Landon Roberts — One single
Jonathan Valenzuela — One single, one double
Cole White — One single

Read Full Post »

The bats were smokin’!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , , on April 19, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Jake Hoagland ripped a pair of RBI doubles Thursday as Coupeville baseball lashed La Conner 14-2. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

They found a groove, and stayed in it all afternoon.

Poking 14 hits in just five innings Thursday, spread out among eight hitters, the Coupeville High School baseball team was unstoppable.

By the time the Wolf diamond men were back on the bus and headed to Arby’s for post-game roast beef, all host La Conner could do was turn off the scoreboard and try to ignore the 14-2 shellacking it had just endured.

The win, the fifth in the last six games for Coupeville, lifts it to 8-4 on the season.

After that non-conference tune-up, CHS gets right back at it Friday, hosting Klahowya (4 PM) in an Olympic League clash.

Win that one, and the Wolves would rise to 3-1 in conference action and stay a game back of Chimacum in the race for a league title.

Thursday, Coupeville came off the bus on fire and never let up.

The Wolves plated three in the first, using a Joey Lippo single and doubles from Dane Lucero and Jake Hoagland to ruffle the Braves hurler.

Hunter Smith (an RBI ground-out) and Julian Welling (a sac fly) knocked in the game’s first two runs, before Hoagland delivered the early KO with his two-bagger.

With Lucero cruising on the mound, the Wolves eventually stretched the lead all the way out to 10-0, with three more runners coming around in the second and four tapping home in the top of the third.

In the second, Lippo delivered a two-run double that sent Kyle Rockwell and Matt Hilborn scampering home, then the senior outfielder capped things by scoring on a La Conner error.

The Braves went to a new pitcher in the third, but the blood bath continued unabated.

Coupeville juiced the bags on a Hoagland walk and back-to-back singles from Jake Pease and Rockwell, then started unloading the bases quickly.

Nick Etzell ripped a two-run single, before the nuclear-hot Lippo delivered another RBI base-knock.

A final run scooted home on a ground-out off of Smith’s bat and the specter of the game being halted early thanks to the mercy rule reared its head for the first time.

Giving their fans a brief glimmer of hope, the Braves finally punched in a pair of runs in the bottom of the third, then held CHS scoreless for the first time in the top of the fourth.

The brief glimmer was firmly stamped out, however, as Coupeville rammed home another four runs in the fifth to effectively ice the game.

The Wolves did all their damage after starting off the inning with two outs and no one on base.

Lippo (yes, him again) singled, Smith was plunked by a wayward pitch, then Welling, the human RBI machine, brought both of his teammates home with a two-run single.

It didn’t stop there, with Lucero’s single driving home Welling and Hoagland’s second double of the afternoon plating pinch-runner Shane Losey.

Coupeville spread out its offense, with Lippo delivering a team-best four hits.

Hoagland (2B, 2B), Lucero (1B, 2B) and Rockwell (1B, 1B) chipped in with two base-knocks apiece, while Smith, Etzell, Welling and Pease all had a hit.

The only two Wolf hitters not to get a hit still reached base, as Hilborn and Jacob Zettle combined to walk three times.

Read Full Post »

The bats are back!!

Posted in Softball, tagged , , , , , on April 14, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Nicole Laxton, here making a play in a home game, had a spectacular diving catch Saturday as Coupeville whacked Friday Harbor 13-4. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The Wolves had six days to think, to plan, to prep, to refine their swings.

Pity Friday Harbor.

Aggressively bouncing back from their weakest offensive afternoon of the season, the Coupeville High School softball squad smashed 17 hits Saturday, decimating their hosts to a happy tune of 13-4.

The resounding non-conference victory, which came a week after a doubleheader sweep at the hands of Forks, lifts the Wolves to 7-3.

CHS has one more tune-up, a road trip to La Conner, next Thursday, Apr. 19, before playing its biggest game in 16 years.

The Wolves host Klahowya Apr. 20, and a win would clinch Coupeville softball’s first league crown since 2002.

Accomplish that and CHS will carry the #1 seed out of the Olympic League to districts in May.

As league champs, they would open the playoffs in the double-elimination round, needing two wins in three games to punch a ticket to the state tourney.

All of that is still fairly far down the road, however, and, on this day, all the Wolves were concentrating on was whacking the snot out of the ball.

Mission, accomplished.

“So, the weather let us play today and we came out swinging,” said Coupeville coach Kevin McGranahan. “All in all, it was a good solid game and both teams played good defense, but we played error-free and they didn’t, and we hit better than them all day.

“Good day trip to the islands and a great lunch after the game, followed by ice cream of course. On to La Conner!”

Coupeville had at least one base-knock in six of seven innings, with seven doubles and a triple along the way.

And yet the game was semi-close for two innings.

The Wolves scratched out a run in the first, with Scout Smith reaching base, swiping second, taking third on a passed ball, then flashing home on a sac fly from Katrina McGranahan.

But the rally stopped there, as they stranded Sarah Wright after she doubled, and CHS couldn’t get Veronica Crownover off of first after she led off the second with a single.

Things took a dramatic turn in the third, however, as Coupeville started to mash the ball big-time, with the first seven hitters reaching base.

11 batters, four hits and six runs later, Friday Harbor escaped with their lives intact (barely), but the Wolves were up 7-0 and everyone’s fates were sealed.

The Wolves juiced the bags with Rose reaching on an error, Smith singling and McGranahan wearing a pitch.

From there it was a revolving door of RBI’s.

Wright lashed a single, Chelsea Prescott walked to force in a run, Crownover launched a two-run double, then Hope Lodell got artistic and dropped the ultra-rare RBI bunt.

Rose came back around to close the scoring with an RBI on a ground-out, and, by that time, Friday Harbor’s collective hopes and dreams were fully shattered.

The host Wolverines managed to finally get on the board in the bottom of the third, scratching out two runs, but Coupeville had an immediate response.

RBI doubles by the scorching-hot Wright and Crownover in the top of the fourth stretched the lead back out to 9-2, then CHS turned on the web gem show.

Nicole Laxton, who came on to give Mackenzie Davis some rest, immediately made an impact.

The junior whacked a shot to right in her first at-bat, then she turned the volume to 12 on a spectacular running, diving snare on a well-hit ball while playing left field.

Snagging the rapidly-descending orb, Laxton speared it with her glove, then held on through the crash back to Mother Earth, earning rapturous applause from her teammates, coaches and hardy road fans.

On another play, fab frosh Mollie Bailey, also a mid-game replacement, made a superb throw from right to Smith, who gunned it on to Wright.

The Wolf catcher caught the ball, dropped and defended the plate like a lioness guarding her cubs.

That prevented Friday Harbor from plating any runners, and gave Wolf hurler Katrina McGranahan the chance to escape one of her few jams.

The Bailey-to-Smith-to-Wright connection paid off again later in the game, this time with the throw nailing an incoming runner at the plate.

After shocking the world by not scoring in the fifth or sixth, despite several more hits, Coupeville found its run-scoring mojo again in the top of the seventh.

Rose and Smith kick-started things again, with the former poking a ball off a glove, while the latter froze all nine defenders with a note-perfect bunt that dropped and promptly dug a hole to China.

That set up the big boppers, and they were swinging for the fences.

McGranahan lashed a two-run triple before Wright and Crownover (who else?) mashed RBI doubles, with all three Wolf sluggers narrowly missing home runs on their epic blows.

Coupeville got hits from seven of the 11 girls who played, led by Wright, who was a perfect 5-5 with three doubles and two singles.

Crownover had four hits (including three doubles), while Smith (1B, 1B), Lodell (1B, 1B), McGranahan (1B, 3B), Prescott (2B) and Rose (1B) rounded out the extraordinarily-deep hitting attack.

Read Full Post »

Have bats, will thump!!

Posted in Softball, tagged , , , , , on March 25, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Freshman Mackenzie Davis had a pair of RBI singles Saturday and was a defensive spark-plug in her debut as a high school catcher. (John Fisken photo)

Let the hits rain down.

With eight different players getting at least one base-knock Saturday, the Coupeville High School JV softball squad had plenty of offense to keep their faithful fans warm on a cold, chilly afternoon on the prairie.

By the time they were done knocking Vashon Island around, the Wolves had rung up 14 hits, one for every run they scored in a 14-7 win.

The offensive explosion, which included a pair of doubles from Scout Smith and a resounding inside-the-park grand slam off the bat of Veronica Crownover, lifts the young CHS players to 1-0 on the season.

Coupeville actually spotted the visiting Pirates a three-run lead after the first half inning, and still trailed 4-2 headed into the bottom of the third.

Then the fireworks went off.

A nine-run, seven-hit, 15-batter affair, the bottom of the third went on longer than some entire games do. And the Wolf fans wouldn’t have had it any other way.

An infield single from Tamika Nastali and a walk to Kyla Briscoe set the stage, then Wolf catcher Mackenzie Davis started the barrage.

Rifling an RBI single down the first-base line, she dropped the ball flawlessly in front of an oncoming outfielder, kick-starting a run of five straight Coupeville hits.

Melia Welling dumped a ball between the catcher and pitcher and zoomed into first, Nicole Lester whacked a shot to center, Jae LeVine crushed the ball to the same spot (but even deeper) and Emma Mathusek whipped a frozen rope into right-center.

All that was mere prelude, however.

After Smith walked to juice the bags, still with just one out, Crownover turned on a pitch and drove it to the base of the wall in center.

A couple of inches higher and her home run trot would have been conducted at half-speed as someone hopped the fence to retrieve the ball.

Instead, with the ball still in play and her teammates running wild in front of her, Crownover hit the jets and came crashing around third.

As she stamped on home, beating the throw, dad Darren pretended he wasn’t a cop who had just witnessed someone break the speed limit right in front of him.

Up 10-4 at that point, with all the air having been punched out of the Vashon players, Coupeville cruised home, adding a few more runs along the way.

Crownover and Davis both delivered late-game RBI singles, while the Wolves also scored twice off of double steals.

Smith led the hit parade, collecting two doubles and a single. She also collected a pair of walks, successfully reaching base all five times she came to the plate.

Backing her up, LeVine, Crownover, Davis and Nastali had two hits apiece.

Read Full Post »