The Coupeville High School baseball team’s season came to a screeching halt when the Wolves lost 5-2 to Nooksack Valley in a losers-out district game at Blaine Thursday, May 2.

The Wolves finished the regular season in a flourish but couldn’t sustain the momentum in the playoffs. Coach Willie Smith said his club “worked so hard” to get the top 1A seed out of the Cascade Conference and then didn’t take advantage of the opportunity with two straight losses at district.

“A rather sudden and unexpected ending to an otherwise strong season,” Smith said.

He added, “Not really sure what to say except we did not come out very excited or focused and played fairly flat all game. Defensively we were pretty solid but, once again, could not get anything going offensively. When we did get runners on, we didn’t execute well or run the bases well.”

The Pioneers scored two runs off starter Aaron Curtin in the second inning and never trailed.

Nooksack Valley (7-14) added two runs in the fifth and one in the sixth and Coupeville could counter with only a single run in the sixth.

Kurtis Smith, Ben Etzell and Morgan Payne collected six of the Wolves’ eight hits by rapping two each. Smith slashed a run-scoring triple and Etzell added a double.

Jake Tumblin picked up the second RBI.

The Wolves beat Nooksack Valley 9-8, coming from five runs down, in a nonleague game early in the season.

Coupeville finished the season with 10 wins in 22 games after winning only five in the previous two seasons. The Wolves lose only one senior to graduation, starting second baseman Drew Chan.