By TIM ADAMS

Sports editor

The Coupeville High School softball team put a scare into league-leading and undefeated Cedarcrest in Monday’s Cascade Conference game.

Cedarcrest scored eight runs in the first two innings, but nearly suffered its first loss of the season and had to mount a seventh-inning rally to squeak past the Wolves 10-9.

After a shaky first two innings, Wolf pitcher Megan Smith settled down and retired nine straight Cedarcrest batters in order in the third, fourth and fifth innings as her teammates began chipping away at the lead.

“Megan did an outstanding job pitching for us today,” assistant coach Jim Murdy said. “We played fantastic out there and I couldn’t have asked for anything more from the team.”

Coupeville scored two runs in the bottom of the second inning and two more in the bottom of the third to cut the lead in half.

“Cedarcrest is one of the top teams in our league,” Murdy said. “I talked to the coaches at Archbishop Murphy and South Whidbey, and they said the Red Wolves were the team to beat this year.”

Coupeville, 0-5 league, 1-6, overall, put three runs on the board in the bottom of the fifth inning and took a 10-9 lead with two more runs in the bottom of the sixth.

Freshman Taya Boonstra scored the tying run and Grace Lapoint slid home with the go-ahead run on a fake bunt.

However, a couple of fielding miscues in the top of the seventh allowed Cedarcrest to battle back and score the tying and winning runs.

“We made a couple of little, basic mistakes out there, but so did they,” Murdy said. “We have a really young team and all the girls played a great game today.”