Freshman Mollie Bailey knocked in three runs Friday, helping Coupeville rout Meridian 18-0. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
“We know the scoreboard works, cause the girls lit it up!”
The buzz among local fans was at a fever pitch Friday, as the rain clouds of recent days departed and were replaced with a hail of Coupeville hits on a sunny prairie afternoon.
Putting the game away quickly, efficiently and forcefully, the Wolf softball sluggers routed visiting Meridian 18-0 in a game called after five innings thanks to the mercy rule.
With the victory, its fourth straight, Coupeville improves to 6-1 heading into a Saturday home doubleheader with Forks.
The Spartans, at 5-2, will likely be a tough foe, if the weather allows the twin-bill to be played. Game times are set for 1 and 3 PM, but high winds and possibly more moisture are expected.
Friday was like a summer day by the time CHS hurler Katrina McGranahan stepped into the pitcher’s circle and fired her first knee-buckling strike past Meridian’s lead-off hitter.
The senior fireballer had few issues, whiffing seven Trojans in four innings of work.
McGranahan overpowered most of her rivals, and when a few did get bat on ball, the Wolf defense gobbled up almost everything.
Scout Smith made a gorgeous one-hop snag at second, never breaking stride as she pulled the ball upwards and fired it on a bead to a waiting Veronica Crownover at first.
Her mate in the middle of the field, senior shortstop Lauren Rose, was unbreakable on the two opportunities she had, launching rockets from the hole to Crownover’s mitt, while freshman third-baseman Chelsea Prescott knocked down the one legitimate liner McGranahan gave up.
The story of the game, however, wasn’t really defense or pitching, but pure, raw, hitting magnificence.
Coupeville whacked Meridian’s pitcher every which way possible, piling up 14 hits in just four innings.
The Wolves sent 11 batters to the plate in each of the first two innings (with eight straight hitters reaching base to open the second), scoring 13 of those 22.
Things got off to a bang when Rose launched a lead-off triple, mashing the ball over the left fielder’s head by several feet.
Smith followed by grooving the next pitch into right field for an RBI single, essentially providing McGranahan with the only run she would need.
Not that the Wolves were going to stop their hit-fest any time soon.
CHS picked up three more base-knocks in the inning, thanks to Sarah Wright, Prescott and Mollie Bailey, who capped things with a majestic two-run single down the right field line.
In between the hits, the Wolves scored twice on wild pitches and once on a double steal, exiting the first inning with an already-substantial 6-0 lead.
Wanting more, Coupeville went bonkers in the second inning, kicking things off with a painful start.
McGranahan and Prescott were both plunked by wayward pitches, with the second one exploding off of Prescott’s ankle with a nasty crack that echoed across the field.
It sent the fab frosh hobbling to first, but after some bouncing, a little running, and a lot of screamin’ and hollerin’ from her teammates on the bench, she was thumbs up and ready to jump back into action.
Said action came fast, with the Wolves peppering the ball.
Crownover lashed a two-run single to right, Coral Caveness whacked an RBI single to center, Bailey walked with the bases juiced to force in another score, then Rose smoked a two-run single up the gut.
Before the bleeding stopped, Meridian gave up one more run, this one on an RBI ground-out off of McGranahan’s bat, and the scoreboard was poppin’ at 13-0.
The third was relatively quiet, with “just” a double from Prescott and a run-scoring single from Crownover, but Coupeville was saving a final burst of beat-down fever for the fourth.
It started with Smith crunching the ball to the right side, then her entire family willing the ball to stay fair.
And the prayers worked, as the ball curled just inside the foul line, bit a chunk of sod, then skipped wildly to the left of the oncoming fielder, finally coming to a stop in some nearby shrubbery.
With Smith perched on second, McGranahan got pegged for a second time, which perfectly set up Wright, who was looking to write yet another chapter in the best seller that is her life.
Playing a day after her birthday, the Wolf catcher unloaded for her second home-run of the season, though this time she put an extra bit of flair on things.
In Blaine, Wright just bopped the ball over the fence in dead-center and trotted around the bags.
This time, in front of friends and family, she crushed a long, low screamer to right-center, than kept on running and running and running some more, no matter what the odds might be.
Flying around third, she caught Meridian’s defense off guard, at least for half a second.
The Trojans had the look of a team which fully, 275%, expected Wright to settle for a well-earned triple.
Realizing at the last second the Wolf junior wanted to make dang sure her uniform was completely covered in dust by game’s end, a Meridian fielder double-clutched, then whipped the ball to home.
The throw came screaming in, Wright started to spin to a stop halfway between third and home, then she juked the rival catcher out of her shoes and jammed the gas pedal through the floorboards, gunning it for the plate.
Slamming into her Trojan counterpart, she caused the incoming ball to squirt up out of the mitt and bounce away, capping a somewhat improbable, and very entertaining, inside-the-park tater.
With the ante raised, Crownover — who like Wright is a thumper at the plate, but maybe not the first person you’d bet on in a stolen bases competition — took things to a higher level.
First, she beat out a chopper deep in the hole for a single, stretching to beat the throw by the margin of her big toe.
Then, just to prove she has jets when she wants to show them off, Crownover took second on a wild pitch, stole third(!) and beat the relay throw home when Meridian had to throw to first after a third strike was dropped on the next batter.
In a game where everything went right for CHS, Smith pulled off her best impersonation of Mariano Rivera in the top of the fifth, taking over for McGranahan in the circle, and doing so with panache.
She gunned down the first two Trojans she saw, her first strikeouts in 10 innings of work this season, then recorded the final out on a soft come-backer.
As his team marinated (briefly) in the joy of the win, Coupeville coach Kevin McGranahan was all smiles, while already looking to the next test.
“Everyone hit, everyone played well; great team effort.”
Wright and Crownover led the Wolf attack with three hits apiece, while Rose (2), Smith (2), Prescott (2), Caveness (1) and Bailey (1) added to the tally.
The only Wolf starters not to have a hit, Katrina McGranahan and Hope Lodell, saw few quality pitches in their turns at the plate, combining to walk four times.
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