Jake Pease beats the tag Friday as Coupeville drills Granite Falls 8-1. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
It’s been like two seasons wrapped in one.
The 2019 campaign has been an unusual one for the Coupeville High School baseball team.
Having lost eight seniors, the new-look Wolves struggled to mount a consistent offensive attack in the early going this spring, scoring just 13 runs while starting the season 0-12.
And then something clicked.
After an 8-1 win Friday over visiting Granite Falls, Coupeville heads to the playoffs on a seven-game winning streak.
During that torrid stretch, the Wolves have plated 66 runners, ultimately cost arch-rival South Whidbey a chance to win a league title, and swept three-game series from Sultan and Granite.
The win which started the redemption arc, a 4-3 shocker over their next-door neighbors, proved to be huge.
If South Whidbey had won that Island rivalry game, it would have entered Friday guaranteed of earning at least a tie for the North Sound Conference pennant with Cedar Park Christian.
Instead, the Falcons faced a winner-takes-all finale in Bothell, and CPC pulled out a 5-4 win thanks to a sixth-inning three-run pinch-hit home run.
Cedar Park, which has been to the state semifinals two years running, finishes 13-2 in league play, while South Whidbey is 12-3.
Coupeville, the hottest team in the conference at the moment, wraps at 7-8 in league action, 7-12 overall, and heads to the playoffs as the #4 NSC team.
The Wolves open the double-elimination bi-district tourney May 4 with a game against Meridian at Sehome High School. Win or lose, CHS plays a second game that afternoon.
But that’s still a week away, and Friday the focus was on honoring Coupeville’s seniors — Bryce Payne, Shane Losey, Jake Pease, Matt Hilborn, and Dane Lucero — while finishing the regular season on a strong note.
Both missions accomplished.
The Wolves jumped on Granite right away, sending 11 hitters to the plate in the bottom of the first inning and bringing six of them around to score.
Three walks, with Hilborn and Gavin Knoblich being plunked, set the table, but it was Coupeville’s bats which did the most damage.
Six singles, accounting for 60% of Coupeville’s hits on the day, sent runners scrambling and Granite coaches to weeping silently in their dugout.
Hawthorne Wolfe started the hit parade, and then Pease, Ulrik Wells, Payne, Losey, and Hilborn (in his second at-bat of the inning) all collected base-knocks.
After the early run-fest, Coupeville didn’t need much more, but it did tack on a run in the second, on a Daniel Olson sacrifice bunt, and a final score in the sixth, on an RBI single off the bat of Pease.
The senior starter led the way with three hits in his home swan song, while Hilborn banged out a pair of singles.
Olson, Wolfe, Payne, Wells, and Losey also had hits, Lucero walked three times and a game after smashing up his face during a collision in the outfield, Mason Grove returned to eke out a walk.
While Coupeville pounded the ball to all fields, Granite had no answers for Wolf hurler Hilborn, who came two outs away from tossing a no-hitter.
He finally got touched in the seventh, giving up a one-out double, but was otherwise in control all game, whiffing eight and walking just a single batter.
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