A big play whiz kid, Katrina McGranahan has never stopped smiling, from little league to high school. (John Fisken photo)
Katrina McGranahan has four years to be a great athlete at Coupeville High School.
Thursday afternoon it only took one swing of her bat to become a legend.
Years from now, half the town will claim they were there, at the end of a sun-drenched, three-hour war of attrition for first place in the Olympic League softball standings.
They will claim they made it through the big hits, the terrible mistakes, the wild mood swings.
That they saw the Wolves come within one swing of 10-running visiting Chimacum, only to come one swing away from losing it all, only to recapture victory in the most goosebump-raising fashion of all.
Most of all, they will remember a stone-cold freshman ripping a two-out, bottom-of-the-seventh shot to left field that cleared the Chimacum outfielder’s head and dropped in, letting three Wolves come crashing home for a what-the-heck-did-we-just-see 22-21 win.
As McGranahan bounced up and down on second base, her coach, Deanna Rafferty, fist-pumped to the sky and an overflowing fan base went nuts.
The win lifted Coupeville to 3-4 overall, a flawless 2-0 in league play (giving them sole possession of first place), but it was far more than just another W in the book.
The Wolves will tell you otherwise, but if they had lost, squandering a 19-10 lead after surrendering eight runs in the sixth and three more in the seventh, it would have been devastating.
But as tired as CHS hurler McKayla Bailey looked at the end — going the distance in her first start of the season, with her hand cramping — Chimacum’s pitcher could barely lift her own arm at the end.
Coupeville took advantage, eking out a pair of one-out walks to get runners aboard in the seventh, but Chimacum pushed the game to the edge by forcing a runner at third.
Down to their final out, the Wolves stayed alive by the edge of Tiffany Briscoe’s batting helmet, which got grazed by a pitch that got away.
With the bags juiced and all of Cow Town on the edge of its seats, McGranahan, who already had three hits and three RBI on the afternoon, looked like a grizzled vet at the plate.
No matter how big the butterflies might have been inside her stomach, she locked in on her pitch and cracked a shot that was never in doubt.
The only question was how many Wolves would beat the throw back in, and Tiffany Briscoe, hauling rear around third as fast as anyone has ever seen her move, followed Lauren Rose and Kyla Briscoe across the plate.
There was a momentary pause — the scoreboard, which hadn’t worked all game, still sat at 0-0 — and then the place went bonkers.
“So, so proud of them,” Rafferty said. “At bat, when we have two outs, I always want them to think there’s one out and play that way. I am so impressed with how they played under pressure.”
The victory celebration, with McGranahan, shy smile still intact after being jumped by her entire team, capped a game of unbelievable highs and dizzying lows.
Coupeville scored 14 runs in the first two innings, with two-run singles from Hailey Hammer and Lauren Rose setting things off.
At one point, the Wolves drew three straight bases loaded walks, with Kyla Briscoe, Rose and Tiffany Briscoe forcing in runs.
Then McGranahan lofted a three-run double — the first, but not last time, she would do that on this day — and Bailey crushed an RBI single to stake Coupeville to a 14-5 lead.
After giving a few runs back, the Wolves almost closed the game out in the fifth, scoring five runs to push the lead to 19-10.
Tiffany Briscoe thumped her own three-run double, coming on the heels of a gorgeous RBI single from Monica Vidoni, but Briscoe was left stranded, two bags away from ending the game by virtue of the ten-run rule.
Given just a sliver of life, Chimacum jumped on the opportunity.
The Cowboys pounded out seven hits in the sixth, scoring eight, then retook the lead with a three-spot in the seventh.
The damage could have been worse, but Rose popped up from her catcher position and smartly threw out a runner at third.
Rose’s dagger, hauled in by Hammer, who hip-checked the runner into the dugout, was one of several standout defensive gems from Coupeville.
McGranahan pulled off a nifty inning-ending double play, spearing a liner and doubling a straying runner off base, while Hope Lodell went zipping from short center to the wall, reaching up and snagging a long fly over her shoulder at the very last second.
At the plate eight different Wolves collected an RBI, with McGranahan (6), Tiffany Briscoe (4), Rose (3) and Hammer (3) leading the way.
Vidoni (2), Kyla Briscoe (2), Bailey (1) and Kailey Kellner (1) all chipped in, while the ever-plucky Jae LeVine drew several crucial walks and Jasmine Melena, Robin Cedillo and Heather Nastali provided vocal support from the bench.
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