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Posts Tagged ‘Matt Hilborn’

Breeze blows in snappy pics!!

Posted in Baseball, Boys Soccer, tagged , , , , , on April 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Sam Wynn (left) and Jonathan Partida combined to score four times Friday in a lopsided Coupeville win on the soccer pitch. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)

   Matt Hilborn fires the high, hard cheese as he closes out a Wolf win on the diamond.

Port Townsend or Coupeville fans, all united by being cold.

“Ha ha, death from above … and … oh crud, my wings are frozen again!!”

Teo Keilwitz uses Jedi mind tricks to freeze the ball in mid-air.

   Joey Lippo digs the longball, even if the steady breeze wasn’t super-conducive to the round trippers on this day.

   All eyes are on the field, except for one lil’ girl intent on figuring out how to break out of her restraints.

Alex Jimenez (right) charges into the fray.

It was prime picture-taking weather.

While the sun was out Friday, there was a nasty lil’ prairie breeze assaulting everyone who stood still too long.

In an effort to keep warm, travelin’ camera clicker John Fisken bounced between the baseball field, and the more-sheltered soccer pitch.

The pics seen above, a mix of on and off field action, are courtesy him.

To see everything he shot (as both Wolf teams won handily), pop over to:

Baseball:

http://www.johnsphotos.net/Sports/Coupeville-Baseball-2017-2018/2018-03-30-vs-Pt-Townsend/

Soccer:

http://www.johnsphotos.net/Sports/2017-2018-Coupeville-Soccer/2018-03-30-Boys-vs-Chimacum/

And remember, purchases help fund college scholarships for CHS student/athletes. Be the hero the world needs.

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Where there’s a will, there’s a way!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , , on March 30, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Julian Welling was a force at the plate and in the field Friday, propelling Coupeville into sole possession of first-place in the Olympic League (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Julian Welling was unstoppable.

A game after being beaned three times, the Coupeville High School senior first-baseman rebounded Friday to slay visiting Port Townsend with both his booming bat and his nimble feet and glove on defense.

Sparked by Welling, the Wolves overcame a viciously cold prairie wind and an umpire with a fairly creative strike zone to topple the pesky RedHawks 3-1.

The win, Coupeville’s third in the past four games, lifts them to 2-0 in Olympic League play, 5-3 overall.

It also gives them sole possession of first-place, a half-game up on Chimacum (1-0).

Defending champ Klahowya (1-2) and Port Townsend (0-2) hold down the bottom slots at the moment.

Friday’s game wasn’t totally what was expected, but a win is a win, especially one that keeps you as the top dog.

Port Townsend entered the day on a 46-game losing streak, dating back to Apr. 9, 2015, but it hung tough, scoring first and leading into the bottom of the third.

The RedHawks scraped out three hits on the afternoon and two of them came in the opening frame.

Toss in a walk and a Wolf dropping a fly ball while on the run, and the visitors exited the inning with a single, solitary run.

Which was kind of huge for Port Townsend, as it’s only the fifth one they’ve scored in as many games this season.

Meanwhile, Coupeville couldn’t get its own offense untracked, alternating between eking out some walks and putting the ball into the air, where it died a swift death in the merciless wind.

It wasn’t until the bottom of the third that the Wolves finally found a way to keep the ball on the ground, and it immediately paid dividends.

With Nick Etzell and Joey Lippo aboard on walks, CHS managed to move them into scoring possession with two outs, then caught a break when a wild pitch sent Etzell scrambling home with the tying run.

The hitter at the plate, one Mr. Welling, then broke his team’s hit-less streak, cranking an RBI single over the bag at third.

While Coupeville’s rally died promptly afterwards, the Wolves had an extra bit of pep in their step with a 2-1 lead, and they shut Port Townsend down the rest of the way.

After tossing three innings and striking out four, Dane Lucero gave way to relief ace Matt Hilborn, who buzzed through four fairly drama-free innings while matching his predecessor’s K-count.

He got a little help, though, with Jake Pease making a running catch in left, snagging the ball as it caressed the laces on top of his shoes.

Then there was Welling, who twice made sensational snags on potentially wayward throws at first, both times recovering to put a tag on the RedHawk runner trying to get by him.

The first one was a nice bang-bang play, while the second was pure artistry, as he had to make the play while down on his knees in the dirt.

“He made two great plays for us on defense, and, in a close ball game, that was huge,” said Coupeville coach Chris Smith.

Welling also tossed another run on the pile, stroking his second RBI single in the fifth.

His rocket back up the middle, which hit the grass hard, bit off a chunk and shot into center, plated Hunter Smith, who smashed a lead-off double to left-center after narrowly missing a home run a pitch before.

Coupeville finished with five hits, with Welling’s pair of singles and Smith’s double being joined by singles off of the bats of Kyle Rockwell and Hilborn.

While it was a bit of a step back after the Wolves had smashed pitching the past couple of games, it was enough to nab a win, and that was what Chris Smith was most interested in seeing.

“Our bats were a little flat today for whatever reason, and we had trouble finding the grass in the middle of the field for awhile,” he said with a small smile. “But we adapted, and did what we needed to do in the situation.

“It’s a nice thing to see that we can go out there and play and adjust to whatever the situation might be.”

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Spotlight hits Hilborn!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , on March 14, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Coupeville junior Matt Hilborn, a baseball star since his freshman season, was tabbed Wednesday as a WIAA Athlete of the Week. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Welcome to the big time, Matt Hilborn.

The Coupeville High School junior, a stellar football and baseball player for the Wolves, has been Mr. Steady for the past three years, but Wednesday, the spotlight found him.

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association tabbed Hilborn as its 1A Male Athlete of the Week, honoring him along with seven other competitors from 4A-2B.

He was honored for his play Mar. 10 in the season opener against Lynden Christian, when the CHS diamond men rolled to a 7-3 win.

Hitting lead-off, Hilborn paced the Wolves with three hits and two RBI, while also beating a throw home, sliding under the tag for a crucial run.

That stretched Coupeville’s lead to 5-3, then, in his next at-bat, Hilborn capped things with a game-clinching two-run single to right field.

After starting at third base and playing spotless defense through the first five innings, he moved to the mound in the sixth, coming on in relief of starting hurler Dane Lucero.

Hilborn closed the game with two innings of scoreless work as a pitcher, striking out two and recording the final out on a come-backer to the mound.

To read more about the players honored this week, pop over to:

http://www.wiaa.com/subcontent.aspx?SecID=961

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Beat the best to be the best!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , , on March 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Matt Hilborn was a force at the plate and on the mound Saturday as Coupeville derailed Lynden Christian. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Change your look, change your luck.

The entire Coupeville High School baseball squad hit the diamond on Opening Day Saturday sporting new caps, while three infield starters rebelled against the fashion trend of recent years and pulled their pants legs back up, showing visible sock once again.

Whether it was their fashion-forward outlook providing the spark, or just their hot bats and slick gloves, it worked, as the Wolves thumped visiting Lynden Christian 7-3.

The win, the first for Coupeville over the Lyncs in four seasons, came on that rarest of rarities — a mid-summer’s day on the prairie in just the second week of March.

The sun was out in all its blazing glory, the skies were blue, there was not a hint of wind to be found anywhere, and the Wolves were humming.

“Just a great team win,” said CHS coach Chris Smith. “We capitalized on a lot of our opportunities and had some fun out there.

“Win or lose, we strive for excellence, and this was a great start – a solid win against a very-good program.”

Coupeville’s success started on the mound, where junior hurlers Dane Lucero and Matt Hilborn combined to blunt the Lynden attack.

Backed by a big-play defense, the duo combined to hold the Lyncs scoreless over the final three innings and were rarely in danger.

“Dane gave us five really solid, good innings, and then Matt came in with a totally different look, and we never let them find a rhythm,” Chris Smith said.

While Lynden scratched out a run in the top of the first, largely thanks to a throw off a hard grounder that got away from the Wolves, Coupeville never blinked.

Instead, the Wolves went right to work in the bottom half of the inning, putting together five hits and reclaiming the lead at 3-1.

Hilborn opened things by beating out an infield single, before Hunter Smith, Julian Welling, Lucero and Jake Hoagland went back-to-back-to-back-to-back with one-out singles.

Hunter Smith also pulled off the slide of the afternoon, doing the limbo under the Lynden catcher’s glove to score off of Lucero’s base-knock.

A bases-loaded walk to sophomore catcher Gavin Knoblich pushed home the third run, but the Lyncs managed to stifle the rally with a pair of inning-ending strikeouts.

The second inning was the only frame in which neither team scored, but Hunter Smith gave the local fans plenty to cheer, pulling off a pair of great snags on hot liners back up the middle.

Both teams added a single run in both the third and fourth, but it was a pair of defensive gems which gave onlookers goosebumps.

Busting his butt on a dead run from deep center field, Joey Lippo launched himself airborne, sliding across the grass, snagging a fly ball out of midair a moment before it landed and skipped away for extra bases.

Then, holding a one-run lead in the fourth, with runners at second and third and just one out, Coupeville pulled off an unusual double play.

The Wolves caught not just one Lync runner, both both of them, in a run-down … on the same play.

Mere seconds after watching his teammate get nailed wandering in no-man’s-land between third and home, a suddenly-crestfallen Lynden player who had failed to jump early enough, got nailed two steps away from third.

The bang-bang, run, tag, then bang-bang play caused Coupeville’s coaching staff to scream like banshees and drove the final stake through the heart of the Lyncs.

Just to make sure, Hilborn pulled off a Hunter Smith-style moment, beating a throw home on a ground-out by Welling, to push the lead out to 5-3.

An inning later, it was time for another “Matt Moment,” only this time he used his bat to be a hero.

With Hoagland and Nick Etzell dancing on the base-paths, Hilborn lashed a shot down the right-field line, dropping a two-run single right in front of the charging fielder.

Coupeville finished with eight hits on the afternoon, with Hilborn (3) and Welling (2) pacing the offense. The duo recorded two RBI’s apiece.

The victory kicked off a season-opening three-game home stand for Coupeville.

The Wolves host Chimacum Wednesday, Mar. 14 in their Olympic League opener, then welcome 2A Sequim to town the next day for a non-conference game.

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Big bats, big win!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , , on July 2, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Nick (left) and Mike Etzell are thrilled to be on the road for three days. Thrilled. (Connie Lippo photos)

   Skyy Lippo amuses herself before the start of a game while brother Joey is not sure about this whole “being stalked by the paparazzi” thing.

The (wooden) bats came alive.

Eight different players crunched a hit Saturday, as the Coupeville High School baseball squad rallied to pull out a 7-5 win over the Enumclaw Avengers.

The victory evens the Wolves mark at the Grays Harbor 4th of July Bash at 1-1, and propels CHS into the winners bracket for Sunday’s madness.

As the #8 seed after pool play, Coupeville gets a rematch with Washington Rush Elite Blue Sunday morning.

Beat the team they lost to Friday, and the Wolves advance to the semifinals of the tourney.

Depending on how things play out, CHS will play 2-3 games Sunday as it wraps up the three-day, 13-team event.

Facing off with the Avengers, Coupeville rallied twice, coming back from 1-0 and 5-3 deficits to pull out the win.

After hitting their only rough spot in the top of the fourth, when Enumclaw struck for four runs, the Wolves went into lights-out mode.

Nick Etzell replaced Dane Lucero on the mound, got CHS out of the inning and eventually threw 2 and 1/3 scoreless innings to get the win.

With Etzell firing BB’s, and catcher Taylor Consford on top of his game (he threw out three would-be stealers), Coupeville chipped away at the lead.

After Matt Hilborn manufactured a run in the fourth with a single and several stolen bases, Clay Reilly tied the game up in the fifth with a hard-hit RBI single.

Coupeville reclaimed the lead for good in the sixth, with Hilborn and Etzell stamping on home.

Both reached base thanks to intangibles (Hilborn eked out a walk, while Etzell scrambled to first, taking advantage of an error) and came around to score on a fielders choice and error, respectively.

While the Wolves took full advantage of Enumclaw’s four errors (they had just one themselves), CHS swung hot bats all night.

The big blow came courtesy Jake Hoagland, who mashed an RBI double to right-center in the second inning to plate Etzell.

Consford, Joey Lippo, Reilly, Hilborn, Etzell, Hoagland, Kyle Rockwell and Gavin Knoblich all collected base-knocks, while Jacob Zettle walked, as nine of Coupeville’s 12 hitters reached base.

The Wolves also ran wild on the bags, with Hilborn accounting for three of Coupeville’s six stolen bases.

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