After splitting its first two games in the 1A district softball tournament in Sedro-Woolley Friday, May 16, Coupeville High School will need to win one of its two games Saturday to claim a berth in the next round of the playoffs.

The Wolves (5-16) play Nooksack Valley (9-12) a noon Saturday, May 17, at the Janiki Playfields in Sedro-Woolley. If Coupeville wins, it will play at 2 p.m. for third and fourth place; both teams will advance to the tri-district tournament. If it loses, it will play at 2 p.m. for fifth and sixth place. Fifth place moves on to tri-district, the loser is out.

Coupeville opened district play Friday with a perplexing 15-7 loss to Lynden Christian, then showed resiliency in coming back to defeat Meridian 6-2 in a loser-out game.

In the loss to Lynden Christian, the Wolves got off to a grand start. Maddi Strasburg blasted a bases-loaded home run over the center field fence in the first inning to score Coupeville’s first four runs and more than counter the three runs the Lyncs scored in the top half of the inning.

Later in the inning, Emily Licence hit a two-run double in the gap.

In all, the first 10 Coupeville batters reached base as the Wolves scored seven runs. From there, the offense inexplicably died and only three of the final 20 batters in the game got aboard.

The big first inning was aided by a single by Emily Coulter and walks to Madi Roberts, Bree Messner, McKayla Bailey and Monica Vidoni.

Strasburg singled in the second, Roberts doubled in the third and Bailey singled in the fourth for the only other base runners in the game for the Wolves. The final 11 hitters went down in order.

Coupeville put the ball in play – it had only two strikeouts in the game – but couldn’t find holes.

Lack of offense after the first inning wasn’t the only problem. The Wolves committed six errors and Lynden Christian’s first six runs were all unearned.

The Lyncs scored three runs in the first, two on an error. That error also kept the inning alive and permitted a run to be added later.

Lynden Christian scored three more in the third. The first batter boarded on an error and eventually scored, and a two-run error accounted for the other runs.

Coupeville still led 7-6 heading into the sixth, then the Lyncs pushed across seven runs on four hits, three walks and two errors to pull away.

(Details of the Meridian win were not available when this was written.)