Katrina McGranahan crunched a home run and three doubles Monday. (John Fisken photos)
Robin Cedillo smacked a single, threw a runner out from right field and had the game’s most enthusiastic miniature fan club.
Katrina McGranahan may never, ever stop playing softball.
The Coupeville High School freshman has been a busy ball player in recent days, playing for her school squad Friday, then putting in five games over the weekend at a select team tourney in Selah, before returning to play for CHS again Monday.
If anything, the constant flow of games seems to have put her in a groove, as she swung an exceptionally hot bat against visiting Bellevue Christian, cracking a two-run home run and three doubles.
And while her offensive explosion wasn’t enough to lift the Wolves to a win — errors killed them in a 13-4 non-conference loss — she went down fighting.
McGranahan may have the bruises to show for it, too, as she was involved in not one, but two, collisions on the base paths.
The first time, her body, the Viking catcher and the incoming ball all arrived at the same time as she beat the throw home with a desperate dive to cap her inside-the-park homer.
The second time she got nailed in the face while trying to slip under a tag at third.
Both times she limped away but kept on charging, Coupeville’s very own fireball-throwing, big-hit-bashing Energizer Bunny.
McGranahan’s round tripper came on a first inning blast over the right fielder’s head that plated Lauren Rose and knotted the game up at 2-2.
That tie held until the fourth, when what was looking like a 1-2-3 inning suddenly veered off of a cliff Wile E. Coyote-style.
After an opening strikeout, Wolf second baseman Jae LeVine, hauling rear across the diamond, came hurtling out of nowhere to snatch a foul ball in the air behind first base for the second out.
But as quickly as the fan’s roars went up, they died, as Bellevue got lucky, then good.
A walk, a wild pitch, an error, two passed balls, another walk, another error and things slid out of control.
Having gotten lucky, the Vikings then got good, bashing a two-run double and an RBI triple to take a close game and blow it open to the tune of 8-2.
Coupeville, in a bit of a mid-game funk at the plate whenever McGranahan wasn’t cranking away, finally got some more runs on the board in the fifth, but it was too little, too late.
The Wolves final run was a beauty, however, as McKayla Bailey blew up the catcher at the plate, knocking the ball loose at the very last second, before slapping one dirt-encrusted hand on the plate.
It was the second big-time play of the day for the senior sensation.
She also made a gorgeous web gem where she sprinted to her right at shortstop and went airborne, Superman-style, to haul in a rapidly-dropping ball like she was snagging a game-winning touchdown.
A dynamite play in the midst of a team-wide string of errors?
Typical on an odd day where the weather fluctuated wildly, the start of the game was delayed by 50 minutes when no umpires showed up — Wolf center fielder Hope Lodell passed part of the time impressing everyone by doing pull-ups on the dugout roof overhang — and CHS coach Deanna Rafferty got run over in the third base coaches box by a Bellevue player chasing a popup.
As the highs and lows of the day raged around her, ever-sunny Coupeville sophomore Robin Cedillo put together one of the best games of her short career while being cheered on by her exuberant niece Charlotte.
Every time Cedillo did something, whether it was smacking a single in the fourth or gunning down a runner at second from her post in right field to end an inning, the little girl her family calls Charlie went bonkers for auntie Robin.
Adorable proof that, win or lose, your little niece cheering for you is always going to make the day better.
And, as soon as the game ended, and congratulatory handshakes were exchanged, a reminder that these are student/athletes, as Tiffany Briscoe, LeVine and, eventually, Bailey, all took off for the nearby high school, where the National Honor Society induction was about to start.
As Briscoe charged past her teammates, intent on going to the ceremony still in uniform, her teammates, noticing the dirt on her softball pants, razzed her.
“Go roll around some more in the dirt first! You’re not dirty enough!”
LeVine was hot on her heels, and then Bailey, who was supposed to deliver a speech at the event, pulled her equipment together and ambled off the diamond.
“No, I haven’t written the speech. Just gonna make it up as I go,” she said, and then smiled the smile of a true Photo Bomb Queen.
“That’s how I do what I do.”
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