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Posts Tagged ‘Joey Lippo’

A final trip around the base-paths!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , on July 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Together since t-ball, and still going strong, are l to r, Nick Etzell, Mike Etzell and Jake Hoagland. (Lisa Jenne photo)

Summer baseball is about two things.

One, it’s a chance for the guys who just graduated to have a final farewell.

And, maybe more importantly, it’s a chance for the young guys who still have high school eligibility, to get some more work in while playing with their teammates.

So growth, and not wins and losses, was first on the checklist for Coupeville High School coach Chris Smith at the season-ending Enumclaw 4th of July Bash.

Consider that part of the agenda checked off, as the Wolves, while going 0-4, came within a run in their final two games.

And they did so with six of their 10 players (6 of 9 on the final day of play) scheduled to return next spring.

“Good tournament for us this weekend,” Chris Smith said. “No wins, but good work for our younger guys that are coming up.”

Coupeville opened with a tough draw on the first day of the tournament (Friday, July 6), falling 8-0 to the Puyallup Knights and 8-2 to the Thurston County Saints in a rain-shortened game.

After a day off, the Wolves returned to the diamond for a Sunday twin-bill, minus Olympic League MVP Hunter Smith, who departed for a family trip to Italy.

Playing with no bench (middle school ace Scott Hilborn was in uniform in case any of the starting nine went down), CHS was nipped 7-6 by the Avengers and 5-4 by Mac Baseball.

In both those games, Coupeville fought back from early deficits to reclaim a tie or the lead, only to give up the winning run in the seventh and final inning.

But, while the wins didn’t come, the hits did for the young guns, as potential returning players accounted for nine of the 15 hits rapped out on the weekend by the Wolves.

Matt Hilborn and Dane Lucero, who will be seniors next year, led the way, both collecting four hits apiece.

Lucero walloped a double, while Hilborn had the team’s biggest base-knock, crunching a seventh-inning RBI triple to left against the Avengers.

The recently graduated Jake Hoagland (1B, 2B), Hunter Smith (1B, 1B), Nick Etzell (1B) and Joey Lippo (1B) notched their final hits in a Wolf uniform, while junior-to-be Gavin Knoblich smoked a single.

Underclassmen Mason Grove, Gavin Straub and Daniel Olson rounded out the Wolf roster, with all three coming around to score at least once during the weekend.

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Diamond dreams live another day!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , on May 20, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Julian Welling is one of five Coupeville seniors selected to play in the All-State baseball series feeder games. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

The baseball season isn’t done yet for five Coupeville High School seniors.

While the Wolves were knocked out of the playoffs last week, Hunter Smith, Joey Lippo, Julian Welling, Nick Etzell and Jake Hoagland will get at least one more chance to step onto a diamond in uniform.

The five were selected for the first leg in the All-State baseball series.

They’ll travel to Bellingham May 31 to play in the 1A/B feeder games for the Northwest District at Joe Martin Field.

Two games will be played that night, with the first starting at 5 PM.

The large contingent of CHS players is a reward for the Wolves putting together their best win-loss record (15-6) in more than a decade.

Coupeville went 8-1 in Olympic League play, winning its second league crown in three seasons, then played three games at districts, falling a game short of the state playoffs.

After a series of 15 feeder games across the state finish, a field of 200+ seniors will be chopped down to 72, with players drawn from every classification, 1B to 4A.

Those players will form the four teams (Adams, St. Helens, Rainier and Baker) that play in the actual All-State games in Yakima June 9-10.

While Coupeville annually sends players to the feeder games, the last Wolf to make the final cut (and agree to play) in the All-State games was Ben Etzell, older brother of Nick.

He pitched for Team Adams in 2014, then enrolled at Saint John’s University in Minnesota, where he went on to play four years with the Johnnies.

 

For more info on the All-State baseball series, pop over to:

http://www.allstatebaseball.com/

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Fill up the stat sheet!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , on May 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   CHS senior first-baseman Julian Welling is among team leaders in multiple offensive categories. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Everything is clicking.

Stellar pitching, timely hitting, slick defense – it all adds up and has propelled the Coupeville High School baseball squad to a 14-4 record.

Coming off their second Olympic League title in a three-year span, the Wolves head to Tacoma Tuesday to begin the double-elimination district tourney.

Two wins in three games, and Coupeville is state-bound for the first time since 2014.

As you prepare your very soul for the start of the playoffs, a quick look at season-to-date stats for the streaking Wolves, who closed the regular season with 11 wins in their final 12 games.

 

Hitting:

Player AB Runs Hits 2B 3B HR BB RBI Avg. OBP
D. Lucero 60 7 17 4 9 15 .283 .371
G. Knoblich 35 9 6 6 4 .171 .310
H. Smith 57 21 27 5 5 6 25 .474 .556
J. Zettle 4 1 1 2 1 .250 .500
J. Hoagland 49 14 10 2 2 11 10 .286 .415
J. Pease 38 7 9 8 5 .237 .383
J. Lippo 58 20 21 2 1 15 9 .362 .493
J. Welling 32 10 14 3 11 19 .438 .612
K. Rockwell 46 6 8 1 9 7 .174 .345
M. Hilborn 57 25 22 3 14 17 .386 .533
N. Etzell 35 11 8 3 8 3 .229 .372
J. Vidoni 1 1 1.000
S. Losey 5 2 2 1 .000 .444

 

Pitching:

Player W/L ERA Gms H R ER BB HBP K IP WHIP
D. Lucero 4-1 3.42 7 28 24 14 16 1 23 28.2 1.536
D. Olson 0-0 0.00 1 1 0.1 0.000
H. Smith 7-1 0.69 8 28 10 5 4 61 51.0 0.627
J. Lippo 0-1 10.50 1 1 1 2 1 0.2 3.000
J. Welling 1-0 3.50 1 3 2 1 2.0 1.500
M. Hilborn 2-1 2.33 7 28 15 10 15 4 32 30.0 1.433
N. Etzell 0-0 9.54 4 3 5 5 2 2 4 3.2 1.364

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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.

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Wolves claim Island baseball supremacy!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , on March 17, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Gavin Knoblich was part of a 13-hit, 10-run explosion Saturday, as Coupeville thumped Island rival South Whidbey. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

South Whidbey had no answers for Hunter Smith.

The Coupeville High School senior made his season pitching debut Saturday and came within one questionable call of throwing a no-hitter as the Wolves scorched host South Whidbey 10-0.

The non-conference victory, coming less than 24 hours after a 10-inning thriller with Sequim, lifts CHS to 2-1 on the season.

Everything was clicking in the sun for the Wolves, from booming bats and quick feet to superb calls from coach Chris Smith.

His best call? Handing the ball to his middle child.

Hunter Smith whiffed 13 Falcons, getting at least one in every inning, and faced just three batters over the minimum in seven pristine innings.

Two of those South Whidbey base-runners made it to the bag thanks to Wolf errors, while the only hit was a disputed one-out base-knock in the bottom of the sixth inning.

While Coupeville’s ace was dealing, the Wolf bats were booming, as they picked apart three Falcon hurlers for 13 hits.

“Solid performance all around,” said Chris Smith. “Hunter was outstanding on the mound.

“We stayed aggressive at the plate,” he added. “Barely missed the opportunity to break the game wide open with a few great plays from the South Whidbey  center-fielder with two outs.”

Coupeville jumped on the very first pitch of the day, with Matt Hilborn peppering a single on his first swing to kick-start things.

While Joey Lippo was robbed by a nice snag on a line drive, Dane Lucero’s RBI double and Kyle Rockwell’s RBI single, packaged around a walk from Jake Hoagland, put the Wolves up 2-0 after a half inning.

CHS added another run in the second thanks to two Falcon errors and another single from Hilborn, but what could have been a much-bigger inning came to a premature close when Hoagland’s long fly to center was run down.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter much, as the Wolves continued to hammer away at South Whidbey, piling on three runs in the fourth, one more in the sixth and three in the top of the seventh.

Both the sixth and seven innings started with Coupeville in a two-outs, no-one-on-base hole, and yet the Wolves responded each time by scraping together rallies with their backs to the wall.

Nine of Coupeville’s 10 runs were the direct result of a hit, sac fly or fielder’s choice, with only one run being plated on a Falcon error.

Lucero and Hilborn paced the Wolf offense with three hits apiece, with Lucero popping a double for the day’s only extra-base hit.

Hunter Smith and Lippo each rapped out two singles, while Rockwell, Gavin Knoblich and Nick Etzell collected one apiece.

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