Julian Welling | Coupeville Sports

Posts Tagged ‘Julian Welling’

Two sports, twice the awesomeness!!

Posted in Baseball, Football, Happy birthday, tagged baseball, CHS Wolves, football, Halo, Happy birthday, Julian Welling on June 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Julian Welling is ready to make the same impact on the football field that he has already done on the baseball diamond. (John Fisken photos)

Welling hangs out at a Wolf basketball game with Katrina McGranahan (center) and Mckenzie Meyer.

Julian Welling is ready for the spotlight.

Today he celebrates his 15th birthday (happy cake day, Jo Jo!).

Tomorrow, he returns to preparing for his sophomore year at Coupeville High School.

A two-sport athlete for the Wolves, Welling has already been a huge hit for the CHS baseball squad.

Scrappy in the field and at the plate, he started a number of games at third base last season, including the team’s playoff game, joining Hunter Smith as the leaders of an extremely promising group of freshman ballplayers.

And while baseball is his favorite (“It’s what I do!”) and has taken him the furthest so far — he’s been playing travel baseball since he was an eight-year-old in Florida — football is coming up fast.

Welling first stepped on the gridiron when he was five, eventually putting in four seasons before taking a brief break to focus on baseball.

Now, he’s doing both, and doing well at both.

In brief comments fired off from between workouts at a football camp the Wolf team is attending, Welling said he enjoyed playing defense (“Mostly, hitting is my favorite”) and wants to continue to work on fine-tuning his skill set.

“I would like to work on my blocking and speed,” Welling said. “I think my best ability is being able to read the line.”

He credits his parents for shaping him (thereby winning him crucial points at a time when they would be considering getting him birthday cake) and has a wide array of interests away from sports.

If he’s not playing baseball or football, Welling can be found hunkered down playing Halo, smacking the drums or watching funny movies.

Regardless of what he’s doing, the rising young star has a simple outlook at what’s to come.

“Over the next few years, I would like to be a better student and teammate,” Welling said.

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Young guns play all day!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged baseball, CHS Wolves, Joey Lippo, Julian Welling, JV, South Whidbey tourney on May 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Jonathan Thurston got the start in game one of Saturday’s JV baseball tourney. (John Fisken photos)

JV coach Chris Smith gets his game face on.

Gotta make the gas count.

Having traveled down to the South end of the Island Saturday, the Coupeville High School JV baseball squad played two games, then went into extra innings in the nightcap just for good measure.

The young guns lost both games, falling 7-1 to South Whidbey before being nipped on a ninth-inning walk-off hit against Cedar Park Christian, but 16 innings of late-season baseball is invaluable as a learning tool.

Game one was a one-sided pitcher’s duel, as the Falcon hurler scattered three hits and whiffed eight Wolves.

CHS hurlers Jonathan Thurston and Joey Lippo were decent, but not as sharp as their rival.

“We never really got going,” said Wolf coach Chris Smith. “Positive note — only one error in the game, which came in the sixth as a dropped third (strike) where we could not record the out.”

That inability to hold on to third strikes would haunt the Wolves all afternoon, as it happened twice more in the second game, with the final time allowing CPC to remain alive and tie up the game.

“Aside from that, we were flawless defensively,” Smith said.

CPC took advantage of a short porch and launched a pair of home runs to break the game open.

Julian Welling, Hunter Smith and Nick Etzell teamed up to share the pitching duties in the nightcap, combining for 10 K’s.

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Freshman fuel rainy day romp!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged 1A Olympic League, baseball, CHS Wolves, Hunter Smith, Julian Welling on April 23, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Julian Welling held Port Townsend to two hits over four innings, earning his first win as a varsity pitcher. (Johgn Fisken photo)

Freshman Julian Welling held Port Townsend to two hits over four innings Thursday, earning his first win as a varsity pitcher. (Johgn Fisken photo)

Get in. Get out. Move on.

That was the mantra for the Coupeville High School baseball squad Thursday, as it drilled visiting Port Townsend 12-2 on a cold, windy, wet afternoon on the prairie.

A win is a win, especially one that snaps a two-game losing streak, and Wolf coach Willie Smith was happy to take it. He just wasn’t all that impressed by it.

“Uninspired” is how he described a win that improved Coupeville to 7-6 overall, 3-1 in Olympic League play.

“A game where you’re just glad to be done with because it’s hard to garner any positives out of a game like this,” Smith said.

Then, giving it some thought, he did latch on to one positive — a fairly easy win over a weaker opponent allowed him to play his young guns for most of the day.

With freshmen and sophomores dominating the lineup, he was able to rest his older stars.

That could be useful as the Wolves head into the final two weeks of play.

With a non-conference game Friday at Meridian now cancelled, Coupeville has five regular season games remaining. All are league contests, and two are against undefeated Klahowya.

With that in mind, Smith held out his big three pitchers (Aaron Curtin, Aaron Trumbull and CJ Smith), opting to use Julian Welling on the hill instead.

The freshman responded, earning his first varsity win by tossing two-hit ball over four innings.

Hunter Smith closed out the game, called early thanks to the ten-run mercy rule, with a nearly flawless fifth.

Welling’s fellow frosh walked the first batter he saw, then closed out the game one-two-three.

At the plate, Coupeville combined eight hits with nine Redhawk errors to pile up their runs.

While he was grateful for the help, Willie Smith would have liked to have seen his hitters take more control of the game.

“We didn’t really tear the cover off the ball,” he said. “Yes, the pitching was not good, yes, the velocity was below average, and yes, we need to be better at the plate.

“We are just not getting good wood on the ball right now and that is a bit concerning, but these guys are good hitters and are capable of putting together better at-bats than what we’ve been doing.”

The Wolves scored one in the first (an RBI single from Hunter Smith), two in the second (a two-run single from CJ Smith), three in the third (five errors and an RBI single from Welling) and three more in the fourth (keyed by Clay Reilly’s RBI single).

Coupeville capped off a game in which it scored in every inning by tacking on three more in the fifth, with Hunter Smith and Trumbull notching RBI singles.

In addition to Welling and the younger Smith brother, the Wolves got solid work from freshmen Joey Lippo and Cameron Toomey-Stout and sophomore Jonathan Thurston.

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84 miles, no hits!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged Aaron Curtin, Aaron Trumbull, baseball, Blaine, CHS Wolves, Julian Welling, no-hitter on March 14, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Aaron Curtin, seen here last year, delivered a stellar performance on Opening Day. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Opening Day played out fairly close to perfection.

With hurlers Aaron Curtin and Aaron Trumbull combining to toss a no-hitter and just about everyone in the lineup coming up with at least one big hit, the Coupeville High School baseball squad thrashed visiting Blaine 10-0 Saturday.

The non-conference win, called after six innings, even played out under fairly balmy weather conditions, with just a hint of wind and even some sun.

The Wolves jumped on Blaine for a run in the bottom of the first, and it turned out to be all they would need.

Josh Bayne led off with a hard-hit single back up the middle — one of his three hits on the afternoon — went to second on a passed ball, then scampered home on a single to right off of Curtin’s bat.

The Wolf senior, moving up to become the team’s #1 hurler with the graduation of Cascade Conference MVP Ben Etzell, was on his game in all aspects.

After giving himself the lead, Curtin struck out three over four innings.

When he wasn’t making the Borderites miss, he allowed his defense to step into the spotlight and they responded, with three stellar plays in consecutive innings.

Trumbull pulled off an unassisted double play at first, snagging a liner and doubling a Blaine player who had walked off the bag.

An inning later, Wolf catcher Cole Payne came up firing and picked off another straying runner, his double-clutched throw dropping into Trumbull’s mitt a heartbeat before the Blaine runner hit the bag.

Not to be outdone, freshman third baseman Julian Welling closed out the fourth inning with a rough-and-tumble play that could have blown up in his face, but didn’t.

Snagging a ball chopped towards his face, he spun towards third and fell down. Without missing a beat, Welling launched himself toward the bag, coming up off of his knees and slapping his glove on the base for the inning-ending out.

With the buzz from that play still filling the dugout, Coupeville finally broke things open with a four-run bottom of the fourth.

Curtin struck again, launching an RBI double, then Kyle Bodamer cranked a moon shot to right that fell in for a two-run double.

Having tacked on one more run on a throwing error, the Wolves handed their 5-0 lead to Trumbull and he struck out four batters over the next two innings.

Blaine got a couple of walks and an error to load the bags in the fifth, but their best shot at a hit fell two feet foul in front of the left field fence and Trumbull danced away unharmed.

With the sun finally vanishing in the sixth, Coupeville wrapped things up with a five-run rally to push the game to the ten-run mercy rule.

A Payne single and back-to-back walks by pinch hitters Jonathan Thurston and Jake Hoagland juiced the bags with just one out.

After that, it was the hit parade, as three straight Wolves punched hits to cap the game.

Hunter Smith dropped a beautiful blooper into the rough grass of the infield for a picture-perfect infield single, forcing home one run.

Then Bayne and CJ Smith whacked back-to-back two-run singles to chase the Borderites back to the bus.

Not bad for a team that featured three freshmen (Welling, Hoagland and Hunter Smith) and two sophomores (Thurston, Clay Reilly).

“I was really pleased with the whole lineup, all 11 that played,” said CHS coach Willie Smith. “They all had really good appearances at the plate, top to bottom.”

Coupeville will go for a second win when it hosts former league rival Sultan Monday. First pitch is 4 PM.

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All hail the gridiron King!!

Posted in Football, tagged Christian King, CHS Wolves, football, Hunter Downes, Julian Welling on July 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Christian King

Put Christian King on a football field and he’s at home.

“I truly love the sport. It’s something I can truly be myself at and I enjoy it 100% of the time,” he said. “My junior high years were super fun and I hope it’s the same for high school.”

King, who will be a freshman at Coupeville High School in the fall, patrolled the line during his middle school days, primarily playing at center and nose guard.

Wherever his coaches put him, he’s more than up to the task.

“I love challenges, like bigger kids than me, cause then I wanna be stronger to fight off my own, you know,” King said. “I don’t wanna have to cause my teammate more trouble cause I need his help on my blocks that I need to make.”

Looking out for his fellow linemen comes naturally to King.

“I love my teammates,” he said. “Even as a freshman most of the sophomores, juniors and seniors are super cool.”

As a middle school player, King had two teammates who he especially bonded with, on and off the field. Both will join him at the high school level this year.

“Two players that really stand out to me are Hunter Downes and Julian Welling. I really enjoy playing with them,” King said. “Julian, basically I work closely with and he works very hard and he is funny! And just an enjoyable person to be around.

“And Hunter tells me everything,” he added. “Plus, if there is something he doesn’t know or I don’t know we go to each other and out of football we are really close.”

King, like most linemen, benefits from his power, but he would also like to work on other aspects of his game.

“My strength in football is my size/strength,” King said. “But something I need to work on is footwork and getting to know the plays better.

“My goals are to pretty much know all the plays in and out and enjoy the season while it lasts,” he added. “Plus a couple sacks, hopefully.”

When he’s not on the gridiron, King can be found playing his guitar and hanging out with friends. But when it’s time to strap on the gear, he is fully committed all the way.

“Right now I’m with my father in California, so I can’t attend a lot of practices, but I love football enough to make it work with (CHS) coach (Tony) Maggio,” King said. “He’s been helpful through the whole thing and understanding.

“And I really appreciate that, cause even I know I can be a pain in the rear!”

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