Haylee Armstrong prepares to open a can of whup-ass. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
As rivalries go, this one is incredibly one-sided at the moment.
Fueled by a fantastic pitching job from 8th grade ace Adeline Maynes, strong defense, and even stronger bats, the Coupeville High School softball squad crushed visiting South Whidbey Friday in the regular season finale.
Running the Falcons off the prairie to a 15-0 tune in a game mercy-ruled in the fourth inning, the Wolves get to 14-4 on the season.
Now, they’ve got eight days to get ready for their biggest game of the campaign.
That arrives Saturday, May 18, when CHS travels to Centralia to play a winner-to-state, loser-out game against a yet-to-be-named school from District 4.
While the playoffs are on the horizon, Friday was all about putting a punctuation mark on the regular season.
And how.
The very-young Wolves, who have no seniors and started two 8th graders and two freshmen Friday, were in control from the first pitch to the last swing.
Enjoying the only truly warm game day the prairie has had this spring, Coupeville fans jammed the stands, with a fair number of little league diamond stars in attendance to watch their idols.
The current Wolf stars more than lived up to the hype.
Maynes, playing catch with Teagan Calkins, held the Falcons to one lonely hit on the day, while whiffing five.
That included a wham-bam-bigger bam second inning, when the Wolf hurler struck out all three batters she faced, the ball whistling past bats with a merry lil’ hum before smacking into her catcher’s mitt.
When South Whidbey did get the ball back into play, Coupeville’s defense was lights out.
Shortstop Taylor Brotemarkle speared a pair of liners in the hole, elevating off the dirt to snag one, while fellow infielders Madison McMillan and Sydney Van Dyke vacuumed up everything that came their way.
Not to be outdone, Mia Farris hauled in a long fly ball to deep center, reaching over her shoulder to pluck the ball from the air while on the move.
Teagan Calkins, born to be awesome.
And then there was “The Red Dragon” sacrificing her body and sending a jolt through the throng of fans on the very first play of the game.
Roaring up from behind the plate, Calkins charged forward, went airborne, stretched her arm to its maximum length, and somehow pulled in a botched bunt as it spun towards the CHS dugout.
Ball hit mitt, player hit ground, ball stayed in glove, crowd and teammates went wild, and the sophomore backstop calmly gazed at her fans and whispered, “Oh, there’s more where that came from.”
Calkins proved it, using her bat and feet to help CHS jump out to a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the first.
The frame began with Haylee Armstrong punching a hole in the sky with a towering shot that dropped in between defenders, with Farris and McMillan slapping singles around a sac fly off the lethal bat of Brotemarkle.
Things really got wild however after Calkins crunched a hit over the third baseman’s head.
With the Wolves running aggressively on the basepaths, it spooked South Whidbey’s catcher into skipping a throw into left field, with two runners careening home to score on the botched play.
With Maynes throwing heat, and the Falcons having little chance to do anything with it, Coupeville blew the game open with an eight-run surge in the second inning.
Three consecutive walks to open the frame juiced the bags, before McMillan, Calkins, Danica Strong, Capri Anter, and Farris delivered run-scoring base knocks.
If South Whidbey thought the pain parade was done at that point, it was wrong.
While the Wolves coasted in for the win, they did so by pounding the stuffing out of the ball.
McMillan, flexing in the sunshine, drove a frozen rope to center field, then hit the jets and outran the throw for an inside the park home run to open the third.
Two batters later, Jada Heaton sliced a shot to right field, then showed off her own set of wheels as she rambled in with a triple.
An RBI single from Maynes pushed the lead to 14-0, with the game-ending run pushed across moments into the start of the fourth.
Armstrong walked, skittered down to second on a passed ball, moved to third on a Farris bunt which was so perfect it could get its own SportsCenter highlight, then tapped home when Brotemarkle mashed a hot shot.
Taylor Brotemarkle sends the ball flying far, far away.
The win gives the 2B Wolves a season sweep of their 1A next-door neighbors — they won 20-9 back in the season opener — and sends them to the playoffs on a high note.
And they’re not done yet.
Friday stats:
Capri Anter — One single
Haylee Armstrong — One single, two walks
Taylor Brotemarkle — One single, one walk
Teagan Calkins — Two singles
Mia Farris — One double, two singles, one walk
Jada Heaton — One triple
Madison McMillan — One home run, one double, one single
Danica Strong — One single
Sydney Van Dyke — Two walks
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