Just ten players deep, the Venom went 13-3 and won a league title. (Charlotte Young photo)
If they represent the future, it is a bright one.
Crunching visiting Anacortes 10-0 Thursday, the Central Whidbey Little League Juniors softball squad clinched a league title in style.
The Venom finished 13-3 on the season, having won their final three games against their toughest rival.
While Central Whidbey split the season series with Anacortes, all three losses were extremely close, while all three wins were extremely NOT close.
The Venom ten-runned Anacortes twice and outscored the off-Islanders by 18 runs over the six-game series.
With the regular season having ended Thursday, a couple of CWLL players may join up with South Whidbey for All-Star play.
That’s still up for debate, but the Venom won’t go forward as a team, with only three of their 10 players available to play in the postseason.
It took a remarkable last-last-last-minute run by coach Charlotte Young to even pull together a Central Whidbey squad this season.
Last season, there wasn’t enough Coupeville girls to make a local team, and the few future Wolves who played had to choose between traveling to North or South Whidbey.
This time around, Young won a reprieve from league officials, pulled off a player drive to beat the clock, and assembled a fully-functioning roster which showed up for every game — unlike the other Whidbey teams — and scored at will.
That high-octane offense (the Venom were +100 runs, outscoring foes 185-85) was on full display, and early, Thursday.
Jumping on the Anacortes pitching staff for seven runs in the bottom of the first, Central Whidbey dropped an early KO.
They did it by sending 13 batters to the plate, eking out six walks and getting some key hits.
The first came from Marenna Rebischke-Smith, who beat out a chopper into the gap between short and second, while two runs came charging home.
Up 4-0 at that point, the Venom then started swinging from the heels.
Melia Welling crunched a laser shot of an RBI single to center, while Scout Smith and Maya Toomey-Stout dropped in infield singles.
In total, eight of Central’s nine starters reached base in the first inning, via a walk, hit or error.
The run explosion was more than enough for Venom hurler Chelsea Prescott, who was so locked-in on mom Josie’s birthday, she could have made do with a single run.
Tossing the team’s first shutout of the season, she had pinpoint control, ripping off five strikeouts while pacing in the pitcher’s circle like a caged lioness.
The few times Anacortes managed to get a bat on the ball, the Venom defense stepped up with big-time plays to snuff out even the hint of a rally.
Cynthia Rachal came up with a huge running catch in center field to end the fifth, while several players conspired to pull off the night’s biggest wham-bam moment.
With a runner at first and two outs in the top of the third, an Anacortes batter hit a chopper into the hole.
Toomey-Stout lunged, snared the ball and almost pulled off a dazzling throw to nab the runner, but it hit the top of Hannah Davidson’s glove at first and squirted away.
Which is where things got fun.
Trying to avoid the throw, the Anacortes first base coach lurched backwards, lost control and did an awkward, but very entertaining, half-cartwheel.
As he did so, the ball bounced perfectly, allowing Davidson to grab it, spin and lay a flawless throw right into Emma Mathusek’s glove at second.
Mathusek had the bag blocked and stayed low, slapping on the tag, ending the inning and causing at least one Venom fan to nearly fall off the bleachers as she threw her hands skyward and screamed in joy.
With Prescott poppin’ in strikes to catcher Mollie Bailey, making the game an easy one to call for home plate ump Martin Mazdra, the Venom didn’t need much more to put a stamp on their season.
But they got it, tacking on a single run in the second (Rebischke-Smith’s RBI ground-out), third (Smith flying home on a passed ball) and fifth inning.
The final run, which triggered the ten-run mercy rule, came when Prescott walked, stole second, then shot around to score when Davidson’s grounder was airmailed into left field.
As the Venom celebrated their win and title, Coupeville High School coach Kevin McGranahan looked on with a smile.
Eight of the 10 Venom players — Toomey-Stout, Smith, Mathusek, Davidson, Rebischke-Smith, Welling, Rachal and Willow Vick — will be freshmen in the fall and could join the Wolf softball program next spring.
Battery-mates Prescott and Bailey are the only 7th graders on the squad.
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