BC slips by Coupeville is district game / Baseball

By Jim Waller • May 11, 2017 1:30 am

Buoyed by a strong pitching performance by Eric Kats, the Bellevue Christian baseball team edged host Coupeville 2-1 Tuesday, May 1, in the single-elimination first round of the 1A District 3 tournament.

The loss brought an end to the Wolves’ (11-9) season. Bellevue Christian (8-10) advances to the double-elimination portion of the tournament and will face Nisqually League champion Seattle Christian Thursday at Curtis High School.

Kats and Coupeville’s Hunter Smith were locked in a pitchers’ duel, and since hits were scarce, defense, or lack there of, proved to be the difference. All three runs in the game were unearned.

Bellevue Christian scored both its runs in the third. Jeff Jewett reached on an error, stole second and scored on another error. The Vikings later slapped a pair of singles, then, on what should have been the third out, scored on a sacrifice fly.

Coupeville tallied its run in the fourth. Clay Reilly led off with a walk, stole second, moved to third on Julian Welling’s bunt and scored on an error on Dane Lucero’s bunt.

Coupeville threatened in the seventh when, with one out, Kory Score and Joey Lippo got aboard on back-to-back Viking errors. A base running mistake and a strikeout ended the comeback attempt.

Kats finished with a one-hitter, a line-drive single by Reilly in the first inning. The junior right-hander, mixing his pitches and speeds, struck out eight.

Smith gave up five hits and struck out five. Other than the inning when BC scored its runs, Smith allowed only one base runner to get past first.

“I like one-run games,” Coupeville coach Chris Smith said. “I love one-run games when we win.”

“They threw a good pitcher, we threw a good pitcher,” he added. “We weren’t able to capitalize on their mistakes. Hopefully we can take away what we learned from this game.”