In what is turning out to be quite a year for the Coupeville girls’ athletic program, the Wolves’ fastpitch team took second place in Saturday’s tri-district tournament held at Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon. Despite the second-place trophy and the trip to the 1A state tournament that it entails, the squad really wanted the win.
“We were hoping for that one district championship this year,” said Wolf assistant coach Kim Meche. “Most of these girls have been in three district championship games this year and we’ve taken second all three times. They were a little disappointed that they couldn’t get first.”
Coupeville’s volleyball team lost to Life Christian in the 1A tri-district final in the fall and took second behind King’s this winter in basketball. Both teams advanced to the state tournament as well.
The fastpitch team made it a hat trick of state tourney berths as they beat Seattle Christian 12-4 in the first round and University Prep 4-0 in the semifinals before losing to league rival Archbishop Murphy 8-0 in the final. It is the first time that a Coupeville softball/fastpitch team has advanced to the state tournament.
The Northwest League-champion Wolves jumped out on Seattle Christian for an early lead on their way to the first-round win. Senior pitcher Sarah Mouw pitched a complete game for the victory and the Wolves almost had the Warriors knocked out early before a rally forced the game to go the entire seven innings.
“We had them, but they scored a few runs and we played the whole thing out,” Meche said. “The bottom of our order hit the ball pretty well in the first game.”
Junior catcher Erica Lamb sparked the Wolves in their 4-0 semifinal victory that assured them a trip to state. Lamb scored the first two times she got on base an used her speed to manufacture runs against the University Prep pitcher.
“Erica was on base all day,” Meche said. “They had a very good pitcher and we might not have scored without her.”
Lamb got on base in the first inning and scored the Wolves’ first run by stealing second, third, and home. The next time that she got on base she scored again. Mouw picked up the win again, this time with a shutout.
The title game was a meeting between two familiar foes. The Wolves took two of three from Archbishop Murphy in the regular season to win the league title, but the Wildcats got a bit of revenge by winning the tri-district final 8-0.
With a state berth assured, the Wolves rested Mouw in the championship game, going instead with Heather Davis in the pitcher’s circle.
“We wanted to give (ATM) a different look, to go with someone who had a little less speed,” Meche said.
Davis threw 2.1 innings before Kristen Gwartney relieved her. The Wolves brought Mouw back to pitch after the Wildcats scored six runs in the first three innings.
The Wildcats went with their ace Kristen Linscott for the third straight game. Linscott allowed just two hits to the Wolves and gave up just 10 hits in the entire three game tournament.
“She still had quite a bit of smoke,” Meche said about Linscott’s performance. “We had some chances though, we ran ourselves out of a couple of innings.”
The double-elimination state tournament gets underway at the Pasco Sporting Complex this Friday and will continue on to Saturday. The Wolves are matched up against Cle Elum in the first round and will play either Royal or Kettle Falls in the second. Not much is known about their opponents.
“We know that Cle Elum got third in their district tourney, so that sounds like a good draw,” Meche said. “But in the other bracket Royal comes in undefeated.”
