Jae LeVine, seen here making a play Monday, has been scrambling to come up with big plays at second base. (John Fisken photo)
Wolf seniors McKayla Bailey (13), Monica Vidoni (14) and Hailey Hammer (15) were honored before the game. (Mike Lodell photo)
Sometimes the little things mean the most.
Case in point: the fourth inning Tuesday in an otherwise less-than-memorable Coupeville High School softball game.
Trailing 7-0 to visiting Chimacum in a game they would lose 8-0, the Wolves were challenged by coach Deanna Rafferty to get the game back on track with a 1-2-3 inning.
In fact, she went one better, pledging to buy candy for every one of her players if they did just that.
Boom.
Hope Lodell hauled in a shot to center, then Tiffany Briscoe pulled off back-to-back pretty snags on well-hit balls to left and led the excited charge back to the dugout.
Awaiting them, their coach, huge grin on her face, shook her head and let loose.
“I literally hate all of you right now!!”
Then she laughed and so did her team, and, for a moment, the promise of candy made things that much sweeter.
Ultimately, though, defense would spell doom for the Wolves — in two ways — as they dropped to 5-10 overall, 4-4 in Olympic League play.
The loss guarantees Coupeville will carry the league’s #3 seed into the playoffs.
A hot and cold defense — when they were on, they made several standout plays, but then turned around and booted some routine plays — killed the Wolves.
Not helping matters was Chimacum’s defense, which was on point all game.
Coupeville made good contact with the ball most of the game, but garnered only two late-game hits — a single from Katrina McGranahan and a smash-it-and-hustle double from Hailey Hammer — as the Cowboys swallowed up nearly everything hit their way.
“We hit it well, we just hit it right at them all game,” Rafferty said.
Chimacum, which is still battling Klahowya for the league title, scraped together four runs in the first without really doing much more than talk.
A lot.
The chippy, vocal Cowboys only had one hard-hit ball in the inning — a two-run single into center — but capitalized on Coupeville’s inability to hang on to the ball.
After tacking on another run in the second and two more in the third, Chimacum had little more to do than cruise in with the win.
McGranahan finally broke up the no-hitter with two outs in the sixth, but was left stranded.
Hammer then led off the bottom of the seventh with a shot to right center, legging out the double and beating the throw by a step.
But she too never came around, eventually being picked off of third by the Chimacum catcher to end the game.
In between a stream of bobbled balls, the Wolves did have several nice defensive plays.
Jae LeVine upheld the honor of second basemen everywhere, sprinting around to flag down several balls, including a pop-up near the first base line.
Right fielder Monica Vidoni charged a single and threw out a runner trying to go to second, Lauren Rose dropped a lightning bolt on a Cowboy trying to steal a bag and Hammer alertly gunned down another runner at home after fielding a chopper at third.
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