Aaron Curtin delivered a thunderous first-inning hit and some strong pitching, but the defense behind him killed Coupeville’s chances Tuesday. (John Fisken photo)
Don’t believe (all) the hype.
Klahowya may be undefeated and the #1 ranked team in 1A, but Coupeville High School baseball coach Willie Smith has seen a lot of teams in his time, and he knows the Eagles can be toppled.
Just not Tuesday.
Playing what Smith termed their “worst defensive game of the season,” the Wolves booted balls all around the field all afternoon, allowing Klahowya to run away with a 10-2 victory.
The road loss dropped Coupeville to 6-6 overall, 2-1 in Olympic League play, while Klahowya went to 11-0, 2-0.
With seven regular season games left to play, including two more against the Eagles, the Wolves have plenty of time to work out their defensive issues. And get back on the winning track.
“The good news: they are a team that we can definitely beat if we play like we are capable of,” Smith said. “I know, every coach says that, but we are really right there.
“For us, this game showed that we need to be ourselves and not try to do something different just because we are playing a “really good team” and that’s not my definition of them,” he added. “We have three games before we play them again and if we come and play like we’ve shown we can play then they are very beatable.
“I think we got too caught up in the hype of Klahowya and forgot who we were; our boys have seen them, we know how good we can be, and my expectation is that it will be a completely different game next time we play them.”
Coupeville actually kicked off the game with a brief surge, scoring two in the top of the first.
It was all downhill from there.
Josh Bayne led off the game with a walk, then came around to score when a Klahowya outfielder misplayed a ball that Aaron Curtin crushed into right.
Carson Risner picked up his team’s second RBI, swatting a ball to the right side to score Curtin and put Klahowya temporarily on its heels.
“However, that was to be the end of our feel good moments,” Smith said with a sigh.
Curtin, who has been on a tear the entire season, whiffed two of the first three hitters he faced, but was undone by his defense, which booted a ball to let a run in.
“That error seemed to rattle us and we became a comedy of errors that didn’t seem all that funny,” Smith said with a deeper sigh.
Having tied the game at two, Klahowya jumped on multiple Coupeville errors in the third to blow things open.
Two walks, a misplayed fly ball in foul territory that gave an Eagles hitter a second chance — he promptly whacked a two-run double — another walk, and then a string of more errors piled on top of each other.
About the only bright moment in the inning came when Cole Payne made a diving backhand of a hard hit grounder and nabbed a runner coming into third.
With their defense imploding and Curtin pulled off the mound (Aaron Trumbull came on in relief), the Wolves needed a spark at the plate to even things out.
It never came.
“Things went from good to bad and we just looked pretty clueless and their pitcher got some momentum and rhythm and the only other hit we managed was an infield single by Josh,” Smith said.
Klahowya tacked on four more runs in the fifth inning in what was probably the nadir of the afternoon.
“They put the game out of reach by scoring four on three hits and five, yep five errors,” Smith said with the deepest sigh of them all. “I suppose I should be impressed that they only got four, but I’m not.”
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