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(John Fisken photos)

   “Wait, so you’re saying we don’t have to stop playing just cause the sun is going to go away?” (John Fisken photo)

Your kids don’t have to put that mitt away just yet.

Central Whidbey Little League is offering fall ball teams this year, with registration starting Monday, Aug. 1.

Practices start in mid-August, with the first games Sept. 10. The season runs through late October.

Current plans call for baseball and softball teams in both Minors (8-9) and Majors (10-11).

Cost is $55 per player, with a $10 discount for additional players in the same family.

For more info pop over to http://www.centralwhidbeylittleleague.com/.

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Jonathan Thurston

Jonathan Thurston deals the high, hard cheese. (John Fisken photos)

Thurston works

   Thurston (Batman shirt) brings the spirit along with running mates (l to r) Jimmy Myers, Uriel Liquidano and Aiden Crimmins.

grin

“I must destroy you.”

Don’t sleep on Jonathan Thurston.

The Coupeville High School senior, who celebrates a birthday today, may weigh about 17 pounds (after a big meal) but 16 pounds of that is heart.

He’s a rampaging beast on the football field, not afraid to hit (or be hit by) much heavier players, bouncing right back up after first holding on to the pass he went up to snag.

Thurston put together one of the better games I’ve seen by a Wolf in recent years.

It came in a JV game against 2A Anacortes last year, when he hauled in a pair of touchdown passes, pilfered an interception and spent much of the game backhanding the Seahawks, often times for real.

The visitors had a roster twice the size of Coupeville (at least) and some of their secondary tried to shove Thurston around.

Didn’t work, as he still made the snag on a throw over the top from Wolf QB Shane Losey, then shot up and knocked a pesky Seahawk on his butt as he strode back to the huddle, smiling all the way.

Thurston is an equal opportunity guy, also tossing some heat for the Wolf baseball squad and playing a vital role in the student cheering section at volleyball games.

Away from athletics, Jonathan seems like a pretty good dude, as well, smart, friendly and outgoing.

As he prepares for his final season on the gridiron, surrounded by his friends, we want to wish him all the best.

Happy birthday, Mr. Thurston. Keep on knockin’ fools on their butts.

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Ian Smith (right) imparts wisdom to one of his succesors, Aaron Trumbull, in 2012. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

   Ian Smith (right) imparts wisdom to one of his successors, Aaron Trumbull, while coaching American Legion ball in 2012. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Erik King

Homer-happy Erik King takes the field in 2010. (Amy King photo)

The base-knocks never stopped landing.

Look back at the last three decades of Coupeville High School baseball and no team has put together an offensive run to equal what the 2010 squad accomplished.

They weren’t the most successful Wolf team in terms of record or postseason accomplishments.

Didn’t make it to state. Didn’t win a league title. Finished at dead .500 with a 12-12 mark.

And yet that last sentence is deceiving.

The reality is Willie Smith’s squad played superb ball at times, but faced a truly brutal year as the smallest school in a tough 1A/2A Cascade Conference.

The Wolves finished fourth in the league standings at 8-9, a full four games ahead of South Whidbey, the only other 1A league school playing baseball at the time.

King’s used to sit the hardball season out back in the day, leaving the Wolves and Falcons to tangle with the five 2A schools.

Archbishop Thomas Murphy and its rotating band of future college players and MLB draftees went 22-4 and finished 3rd at state in the 2A tourney, while Cedarcrest finished 15-5.

While the 2016 Wolves snapped a 25-year dry spell and won the 1A Olympic League title, it’s hard to really compare their three foes (Klahowya, Port Townsend, Chimacum) to the razor-tipped romp through a no-man’s land Coupeville “enjoyed” in its old league.

Having survived the trek, CHS split four postseason games, beating Lynden Christian 6-4 and Nooksack Valley 10-9, while falling to Meridian 7-1 and (in what became the season finale) Seattle Christian 8-7.

Meridian went on to claim 3rd at the 1A state tourney.

But while their record, as hard-earned as it was, may not be an all-time best, the Wolves were a force to be reckoned with at the plate.

Coupeville had five All-Conference players in ’10, with infielder JD Wilcox landing on the First Team and Ian Smith (P), Chase Griffin (C), Chad Brookhouse (INF) and Erik King (OF) Second-Teamers.

The Wolves were a veteran group that year, with seven seniors in their lineup (though Jason Bagby missed a huge chunk of time) as one era closed out.

That summer a group of Central Whidbey Little League players like Ben Etzell and Morgan Payne won a state title and they joined the high school program almost en masse the next year.

And promptly got beat on for awhile by the 2A powers and their junior and senior-heavy rosters.

But in 2010, Coupeville claimed as many grizzled vets as any team, and they swung the bat like no Wolf team in memory.

The stats are uncanny, frankly.

The top four single-season highs for hits by an individual CHS player in the last 30 years all came that season, and the Wolves hit for average and power.

Wilcox, a certified star, was exactly that, but Coupeville also got career-best work from Brookhouse, a tough-nosed journeyman, and a surprising power show from a slightly unexpected source.

King is not a big, burly dude, but he had exceptional bat quickness and a well-honed eye and used both to pace the team in home runs and slugging percentage.

League titles are not to be sneezed at, and state trophies (like the 3rd place one nabbed by the ’87 CHS squad) live forever, but don’t sleep on the 2010 Wolves.

They blew up the scoreboard and should be remembered for all they accomplished.

Take a look at their plate stats, then tip your hat to the greatest offensive show the prairie may have ever seen.

The stats:

Player AB Runs Hits 1B 2B 3B HR SB BB RBI Avg. Slug.
Griffin 68 28 22 19 2 1 9 20 10 .324 .397
Smith 78 23 30 19 8 2 1 7 8 22 .385 .577
Wilcox 78 31 31 22 6 2 1 12 12 18 .397 .564
King 66 19 27 20 4 3 3 15 20 .409 .606
B-house 70 20 32 26 4 2 2 10 32 .457 .600
Bagby 15 5 6 4 2 3 3 7 .400 .533
Eaton 68 12 22 17 5 1 9 16 .324 .397
McClain 67 8 17 17 2 10 10 .254 .254
Wheat 59 7 12 10 2 6 5 .203 .237
Thurman 50 6 12 10 2 3 4 8 .241 .281
Bodamer 5 1 1
Sele 3
Chan 9 1 1 1 2 .111 .111
Carlson 1
McCormick 1
Gooch 1
TOTALS 639 159 212 165 35 4 8 42 99 151 .332 .437

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Hawthorne Wolfe, seen here during basketball season, is one of six Central Whidbey baseball players (Pat Kelley photo)

   Hawthorne Wolfe, seen here during basketball season, is one of six Central Whidbey baseball players taking part in district tourney action. (Pat Kelley photo)

It’s a joint venture, but most of the stars are from Coupeville.

Or at least that’s the way I’m choosing to see it (this ain’t called South Whidbey Sports…) as the Central/South Whidbey 11/12 little league all-star baseball squad battles at the district tourney in Sedro-Woolley.

The team includes six Coupeville athletes — Caleb Meyer, Hawthorne Wolfe, Scott Hilborn, Drake Borden, Cody Roberts and Sage Sharpe — and has split its opening games.

After taking a 6-3 loss to the tourney hosts Friday, Central/South rebounded to drill Anacortes 12-1 Saturday.

The mixed squad plays North Whidbey in a loser-out game Monday (6 PM), for a chance to gain a rematch with Sedro.

Against Anacortes, everything was working, with Roberts thumping a three-run home run to invoke the ten-run mercy rule.

Wolfe swung a big bat, as well, cracking a three-run double, then returning later to notch an RBI single.

Before smacking his tater, Roberts reached twice on errors, while Hilborn plated Sharp on a fielder’s choice.

In the opening tourney loss, Roberts doubled and scored twice.

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JD Wilcox

   JD Wilcox (left) whacked 85 hits over four years, best by any Wolf since 1990. (Mindy Wilcox photo)

Morgan Payne

   Morgan Payne (left) and Ben Etzell were four-year starters and both finished in the top five for career hits between 1990-2016. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Need one hit to save the day?

Over the last two decades-plus, the man you wanted at the plate for Coupeville High School was JD Wilcox, then.

Having gone through a pile of old baseball score-books, which featured wildly different recording styles (favorite notation from the late ’90s scrawled under a wild inning — “No clue. It was a cluster…”), I have a better idea now of who were the true Wolf hitting machines.

And no one recorded more career base-knocks during that time frame than Wilcox, who scorched 85 of them.

Now, having access to 18 of 27 score-books from 1990 to 2016, my research work is not complete, but reasonably close.

Even with nine missing books, I can piece together two-thirds of the time period.

So, a pretty good slice of the pie.

The best single season that I know about?

Chad Brookhouse, who stroked 32 hits in 2010.

In fact, that year produced the top four single-season performances found in my research, with Wilcox (31), Ian Smith (30) and Erik King (27) also swinging hot sticks.

Now, the question which lingers — was the ’10 team, which outhit the ’08 district champs 212-171, truly the best-hitting squad of the last 26 years?

Or was that year’s scorekeeper more lenient on what constituted a base hit?

We may never know.

Career-wise, Wilcox edges James Smith 85-77, with Ben Etzell (71), Casey Larson (70), Morgan Payne (68), Jake Tumblin (67), Alex Evans (66), Ian Smith (65), Kurtis Smith (61) and Aaron Curtin (52) rounding out the Top 10.

Of course, with the missing books, there’s always a chance we’re excluding someone worthy from that roll call.

Especially if they played from 2002-2004, the longest stretch of consecutive seasons lost to the wind.

But hey, if I’m not giving you something to argue about, I’m not doing my job.

So here, as best as I have been able to piece together, is the CHS hit parade from 1990-2016.

1990:

Frank Marti – 18
Matt Cross
– 17
Chris Frey
– 16
Brad Haslam
– 16
Brian Barr
– 13
GT Wolfe
– 10
Todd Brown
– 8
Ryan Samplawski
– 8
Les Hall
– 6
Scott Zustiak
– 3
Jordan Osorio
– 4
Shawn Ankney
– 1
Troy Blouin
-1
? Byers
– 1

1991:

Brad Haslam – 18
Frank Marti
– 18
Brian Barr
– 15
Jason McFadyen
– 15
Matt Cross
– 14
Chris Frey
– 12
Todd Brown
– 10
Jason McManigle
– 8
Ryan Samplawski
– 8
Eric Anderson
– 4
John Turner
– 4
Troy Blouin
– 1

1992:

Brad Haslam – 16
Troy Blouin
– 12
Jason McManigle
– 12
Jay Renaux
– 11
Matt Cross
– 9
Keith Currier
– 9
Todd Brown
– 6
Brian Wood
– 5
Tad Crease
– 4
Jason Hughes
– 3
Eric Anderson
– 2
Lance Allen
– 1
Jeremiah Prater
– 1

1993:

Keith Currier – 16
Cody Lowe
– 9
Jason McManigle
– 9
Jay Renaux
– 9
Jon Crimmins
– 8
Jason Hughes
– 7
Keith Dunnagan
– 5
Brent Fitzgerald
– 5
Scott Wofford
– 4
Troy Blouin
– 3
Blair Miller
– 1

1994:

Brad Miller – 14
Rich Morris
– 13
Mike Vaughan
– 13
Keith Dunnagan
– 11
Nick Sellgren
– 8
Jeremy Staples
– 8
Brent Fitzgerald
– 6
Blair Miller
– 3
Ben Lyle
– 2
Ryan Wiley
– 1

1995:

Brad Miller – 23
Mike Sloan
– 19
Jeremy Staples
– 14
Mike Vaughan
– 14
Greg White
– 12
Christian Lyness
– 11
Nick Sellgren
– 11
Keith Dunnagan
– 7
Rich Morris
– 6
Ryan Wiley
– 2
Brent Fitzgerald
– 1
? Nelson – 1

1996:

Book missing

1997:

Book missing

1998:

Christian Lyness – 14
Matt Brown
– 13
Aaron Henderson
– 12
Josh Smith
– 12
Ben Hancock
– 11
Eric Wiley
– 10
Caden Russell
– 6
Justin Barnes
– 5
Daniel Palmquist
– 5
Mike James
– 4
Bill Marti
– 3
Jason Joiner
– 1

1999:

Book missing

2000:

Book missing

2001:

David Rochin 19
Dustin Van Velkinburgh
15
Brett Barker
11
Justin Barnes
11
Tyler Hauan
11
Jacob Henderson
10
Tyrell Blouin
9
Mark Whittaker
5
JD Myers
4
Brian Fakkema
2
Brian Miller
1
Casey Mitchell
1

2002:

Book missing

2003:

Book missing

2004:

Book missing

2005:

Casey Larson 23
Kirby Mitchell
23
James Smith
19
Alex Evans
18
Trevor Mueller
18
Jack Armstrong
17
Mike Bagby
17
Cory Black
16
Anthony LaPoint
6
Tony Prosser
6
Kyle Wilcox
6
Jared Murdy
3

2006:

Book missing

2007:

James Smith – 22
Zach Hauser
– 17
Casey Larson
– 15
JD Wilcox
– 13
Jared Murdy
– 10
Kyle Wilcox 
– 9
Alex Evans
– 7
Tony Prosser
– 6
Jake Hill
– 4
Cory Black
– 3
Kramer O’Keefe
– 1
Zach Pelant
– 1

2008:

Alex Evans – 22
Zach Hauser
– 22
James Smith
– 22
Kyle Wilcox
– 22
JD Wilcox
– 19
Kramer O’Keefe
– 17
Jake Hill
– 16
Jared Murdy
– 15
Chase Griffin
– 8
Jason Bagby
– 5
Ian Smith
– 3

2009:

JD Wilcox 22
Ian Smith
– 16
Jake Hill
– 15
Chad Brookhouse
– 14
Erik King
– 14
Chase Griffin
– 13
Jason Bagby
– 10
Kevin Eaton
– 10
Alex McClain
– 5
Dalton Engle
– 3
Joe Fleck
– 3
Ryan Oliver
– 1

2010:

Chad Brookhouse – 32
JD Wilcox
– 31
Ian Smith
– 30
Erik King
– 27
Kevin Eaton
– 22
Chase Griffin
– 22
Alex McClain
– 17
Sean Thurman
– 12
Erik Wheat
– 12
Jason Bagby
– 6
Drew Chan
– 1

2011:

Morgan Payne – 18
Ian Smith
– 16
Alex McClain
– 11
Jake Tumblin
– 11
Wade Schaef
– 10
Brandt Bodamer
– 7
Drew Chan
– 7
Ben Etzell
– 7
Kurtis Smith
– 6
Kole Kellison
– 5
Zach McCormick
– 3
Ben Carlson
– 2

2012:

Jake Tumblin – 18
Morgan Payne
– 16
Ben Etzell
– 15
Wade Schaef
– 12
Drew Chan
– 9
Korbin Korzan
– 8
Kurtis Smith
– 8
Aaron Trumbull
– 8
Aaron Curtin
– 7
Josh Bayne
– 4
Brandt Bodamer
– 3
Brian Norris
-2
Zach McCormick
– 1
Paul Schmakeit
– 1

2013:

Morgan Payne -24
Ben Etzell – 23
Kurtis Smith
– 23
Jake Tumblin
– 17
Drew Chan
– 11
Aaron Curtin
– 11
Kyle Bodamer
– 10
Korbin Korzan
– 8
Aaron Trumbull
– 8
Josh Bayne
– 7
Wade Schaef
– 3
Cole Payne – 2
Joe Edwards – 1

2014:

Ben Etzell – 25
Kurtis Smith
– 24
Aaron Trumbull
– 24
Josh Bayne
– 21
Jake Tumblin
– 21
Wade Schaef
– 14
Aaron Curtin
– 12
Morgan Payne
– 10
Korbin Korzan
– 7
Cole Payne
– 4
CJ Smith
– 2

2015:

Aaron Curtin – 22
Cole Payne
– 16
Kyle Bodamer
– 15
Josh Bayne
– 13
Hunter Smith
– 12
Clay Reilly
– 11
Carson Risner
– 11
Aaron Trumbull
– 11
CJ Smith
– 9
Jake Hoagland
– 2
Julian Welling
– 2
Gabe Wynn – 2
Joey Lippo
– 1
Cameron Toomey-Stout
– 1

2016:

Book not available

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