Lauren Rose, seen here during practice, absolutely abused a softball Saturday, driving a triple to deepest center field. (John Fisken photo)
Like sand between the fingers, this one slipped away.
After bashing the ball with ease most of the afternoon Saturday, the Coupeville High School softball squad suddenly went cold down the stretch, letting visiting Meridian wiggle away with a 10-8 win.
The non-conference loss drops the Wolves to 7-5 heading into the heart of their league schedule.
Coupeville, which is 2-2 and in second place in the 1A Olympic League, plays all three of its conference rivals next week.
The Wolves host Chimacum (3-0) Monday, travel to Klahowya (1-1) Wednesday, then are back on Whidbey to face Port Townsend (0-3) Friday.
Saturday’s tune-up started nicely, with Coupeville scoring in all of the first five innings, but then the bats went cold, as Meridian retired seven of the final eight Wolves.
Tied 8-8 after five, the visiting Trojans picked up a run in the top of the sixth on a hard-hit RBI triple to right, then tacked on an insurance run in the seventh by poking an RBI single over the first-baseman’s head.
After a series of shuffles, Meridian was on its third pitcher at the close of the game, but the strategy worked, as Coupeville’s final two hitters went down on strikes while representing the potential tying run.
Things were much brighter at the start, as the Wolves used timely hits, aggressive base-running and some Trojan miscues to jump out to a 2-0 lead.
Lauren Rose socked a lead-off single to center in the first, stole second and came around to score on a passed ball, then Kailey Kellner brought out the big stick in the second inning.
Crunching a double to left, she alertly picked up another bag when the throw back in sailed over the infielder’s heads. A moment later, she too skipped home on a passed ball as the Meridian catcher struggled in the early going.
From there the game took on a seesaw feel, as the lead shifted back and forth.
Four hits plated three runs for Meridian in the third — and gave it a brief taste of the lead — but Coupeville responded immediately.
A single into the gap between short and third from Katrina McGranahan and a Meridian error on a hard chopper by Sarah Wright set the scene in the bottom of the third, then Veronica Crownover got medieval on the ball.
Unloading a shot to right field that ricocheted off a glove, she ended up at second with a stand-up two-run double that restored Coupeville’s lead to 4-3.
The rally ended too quickly, however, a recurring theme on this day.
While the Wolves scored in each of the first five innings, they also stranded base-runners in all of those innings, and spent much of the day one good swing away from really busting things wide open.
Coupeville stretched the lead to 5-3 in the fourth, with Hope Lodell ripping an RBI single under a mitt.
Lauren Rose, who crossed home with the score, had reached base after an unusual at-bat.
Thinking she had struck out, she grabbed her bat and started back to the bench, only to have coach Kevin McGranahan gently remind her she only had two strikes.
Taking advantage of the new opportunity, “Mouse” unloaded from the very bottom of her toes, smacking a shot to the deepest part of the park with almost enough force to untie her shoelaces.
As the ball hit the ground a millimeter away from the center-field fence with a bang loud enough to wake up any slumbering ducks on the prairie, the mightiest mite of them all tore into third with a stand-up triple.
Waiting for Rose was her coach, who nodded and grinned as his third-baseman looked up at him, blushing a bit, maybe because of the exertion and maybe because of forgetting the pitch count.
The lead wouldn’t hold, though, as a string of Wolf errors swung the pendulum back to Meridian, which used a five-run fifth to surge back in front 8-5.
Unfazed, Coupeville responded with three runs of its own to knot things back up, and there was a genuine sense at that point that you were watching two boxers trade blows, with the KO coming from whomever hit last.
The Wolves rally started with another double from Crownover, followed by four walks and a dropped ball on a play at home.
But Meridian, using three pitchers in the inning, finally found one who worked, escaping from a bases-loaded jam when Wright grounded out on a sharply hit ball.
Little did the Wolves know that, in that moment, the offense was effectively turning off.
Coupeville collected nine hits in the loss, with Rose, Katrina McGranahan and Crownover each notching a pair. Lodell, Kellner and Jae LeVine each had one.
Robin Cedillo had an especially nice catch in right on a long, arcing fly and LeVine was a beast at second, knocking down everything that came her way, to provide stability to a team defense that wildly fluctuated on this afternoon.
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