Matt Hilborn, seen here in an earlier game, was a vacuum at short Thursday afternoon. (John Fisken photo)
They held their own.
Playing against a varsity squad Thursday, the Coupeville High School JV baseball team strung together five-plus really solid innings, but fell 6-1 to visiting Bush on the first truly sunny day of the spring sports season.
What stung the Wolves was a brief bit of sustained trouble in the first inning, and a momentary burp at the very end of the game.
Otherwise, take the second through the sixth inning and it was a 1-1 deadlock.
The loss drops the CHS young guns to 1-3 on the season, while Bush, a private school out of Seattle, improves to 4-1.
The game was set up because the Blazers first-year head coach, Greg Conley, played baseball at Sequim High School for Coupeville Athletic Director Willie Smith.
“One of the best players I ever coached,” Smith said. “Great kid, good baseball guy.”
After high school, Conley went on play at Oregon State and was drafted in 1995 by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
While he’s only been in his current job for a short time, you can see the Bush players are learning quickly from their new mentor, and they played with poise and polish.
Or, basically, played a lot like Willie Smith’s own hardball teams, at Sequim and Coupeville, always did.
Conley’s counterpart at CHS, Chris Smith, salted his JV lineup at the top with three varsity players, Matt Hilborn, Joey Lippo and Julian Welling, and that trio combined to collect all five of Coupeville’s hits.
But the Wolves also treated the game as an effective way to give their true JV players solid innings against strong competition, with Chris Smith getting at-bats for 12 different players.
The top of the first was the only poor frame for Coupeville, as Bush used three solid hits and a couple of Wolf miscues on attempted pick-offs to build an early 3-0 lead.
After that, Wolf hurler Jonathan Thurston locked in and was deadly effective for the remainder of his five-inning stint.
He retired 13 of the final 17 hitters he faced, whiffing four and not surrendering a hit after the first inning.
“Once Johnny was able to dial it in, he pitched us a gem,” Chris Smith said. “He really threw a beautiful game.”
Coupeville had a golden opportunity to get right back in the game after Lippo laced a one-out double over the head of a Blazer outfielder in the bottom of the first.
It wasn’t to be, however, as Bush fielders made two nice plays back-to-back to deny Welling and Jake Pease base-knocks.
Down 4-0 after the Blazers added an unearned run in the fourth, the Wolves broke through in the bottom half of the inning.
Hilborn and Lippo started the inning off with consecutive singles, then teamed up on a double steal, largely thanks to nimble base-running by Lippo.
Skidding to a stop halfway to second, he drew the throw to him, giving Hilborn a chance to streak home while he then danced out of the pickle and landed safely at second.
After an infield single from Welling on which he couldn’t move up because of where the ball was hit, Lippo successfully stole third, dipping at the last second to slide under the tag.
Except…
Every single person in the park, including the Bush third-baseman, who slapped his thigh in frustration, saw it that way.
Just not the ump, who caught everyone by surprise by signalling an out.
That took a bit of the wind out of Coupeville’s sails, and the Wolves couldn’t get a sustained rally going again after that.
Bush scraped out a pair of runs in the sixth to pad the final margin.
Other than their first-inning misfires, the Wolves were fairly solid on defense.
Ulrik Wells pulled down a skyscraper of a popup at second, Hilborn was a vacuum at short, Lippo ran down a pair of deep shots to center and Thurston and Welling made nice plays on come-backers to the mound.
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