After pitching three games in one day, McKayla Bailey (center) gets sweet lovin’ from lil’ sis McKenzie (left) and mom Donna. (Robert Bishop photos)
Maddie Big Time calls her shot.
Haley Sherman smiles through the pain.
Back: David King, McKayla Bailey, Amy King, Emily Licence, Breeanna Messner, Monica Vidoni, Hailey Hammer, Haley Sherman, Madeline Strasburg, Kailey Kellner. Front: Madeline Roberts, Erin Josue, Emily Coulter, Robin Cedillo, Jae LeVine, Tiffany Briscoe.
The improbable dream came true.
Maddie Big Time, Breezy, The Photo Bomb Queen, Sherminator, Mad Dog and the whole gang are going to state.
Continuing a torrid, somewhat unexpected run through the playoffs, the Coupeville High School softball squad won two of three Saturday at Tri-Districts, including knocking off a team that had won a game 32-4 earlier in the day, and punched its ticket to the 1A state tourney.
It’s the first trip to the big dance for the Wolf softballers since 2002, and they’ll head to Richland May 30-31 with nothing to lose.
Play like they did Saturday, and they could shake up the world.
The Wolves opened play in Sedro-Woolley by toppling Eatonville 12-6, had a momentary slip-up in an 8-0 loss to Lynden Christian, then bounced back to shock Blaine 7-4.
The final victory was even sweeter, because the Borderites had thumped Coupeville 20-4 last week at districts.
Maybe Blaine used up its offense in its opening game — an epic 32-4 rout of Vashon Island — because it dropped its final two games and will sit at home while its vanquishers, Nooksack Valley and Coupeville, keep on playing.
The Wolves will head to state boasting just an 8-18 record, but it’s a bit deceiving, as they played most of their games against 2A competition in the 1A/2A Cascade Conference.
Coupeville is now 7-4 against fellow 1A schools.
And those 2A schools? Only one, Sultan, made it to state, while league champ Granite Falls got bounced.
Heroes were everywhere Saturday, with McKayla Bailey throwing all three games and never wavering, even when she took a liner off the stomach during the Blaine game.
“McKayla, what a warrior!,” said an exhausted CHS coach David King. “She went the distance in all three games and pitched three outstanding games.”
Bailey whiffed seven in the opener against Eatonville, and her offense surged right from the get-go, scoring a quick five-spot in the first inning.
Madeline Strasburg donned her super hero persona of Maddie Big Time again, cranking a shot to the deepest spot in left for the latest in a series of pop-your-eyeballs-out home runs.
Senior Haley Sherman delivered her best game of the year, and possibly her career, with a pair of doubles and five RBI, while Hailey Hammer missed her own home run by six inches.
King was beaming the whole way, saying “We were patient at the plate, and hit the ball hard throughout the game.”
Game two was a brief bit of a downer, as the offense that had been roaring took a brief nap.
The only time the Wolves threatened was in the fifth, when they loaded the bags on consecutive singles from Emily Licence, Madeline Roberts and Breeanna Messner.
But the rally ended before they could get a runner across home.
The middle game also cost them Sherman, who injured her ankle while going all out to snag a fly to left. She stayed to cheer on her girls in the deciding game, and her status for the state tourney is not known yet.
With the season on the line, Coupeville stepped up and stared down the beast.
32-4? Time to go home, Blaine.
Hammer whacked a three-run double to spark a five-run second in which the Wolves hit around and things were going great.
Then King almost got himself tossed.
A badly botched call in which an out-of-place ump gave Blaine a home run on a ball that clearly hopped through an opening in the fence for what should have been a ground rule double sent the Wolf coach into a tizzy and he was given a warning while arguing from his dugout.
“Oh, was I hot about this terrible call,” King said. “It’s too bad a call like this can’t be made correctly.”
Coupeville bounced back with RBIs from Hammer and Bailey, then sophomore Emily Coulter decided to try on the super hero persona.
With two runners on and one out in the seventh, the Blaine batter who got the freebie home run stepped to the plate and lofted a pop up over Hammer’s head at first.
Coming on a dead run from second, Coulter snagged the ball and smartly flipped the ball quickly to first to double up a straying runner and send CHS to state.
“This team is playing with confidence, different players are stepping up and contributing,” King said. “Case in point, Tiffany (Briscoe), who got the start in game three (for Sherman) and had an RBI single.
“The leaders are leading and the young players have stepped up their game!”
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