Bob Rea, the strikeout king of Snakelum Point. (Photo courtesy Rea)
Records are set to be broken.
You only have to look as far as the big board for track and field which sits just inside the entrance of the Coupeville High School gym.
Over the years, all-time greats such as Jon Chittim, Makana Stone, and Virgil Roehl set marks which seemed untouchable.
And yet, over time, most of those accomplishments have been surpassed, a testament to hard work, changes in training, and maybe all those hormones in the milk.
Yes, a few marks have endured decades — there are still records from the ’80s up there — and it’s the same in every sport.
Will anyone ever touch Ian Barron’s nearly-untouchable rushing records on the CHS football board?
Unlikely, but hey, once upon a time, we thought no one would reach Chad Gale’s receiving marks, and yet Hunter Smith eventually did.
It’s the same with volleyball records set by big-timers like Hailey Hammer and Mindy Horr and others.
They seem untouchable … until they aren’t.
There are at least three CHS records, though, which have endured for at least five decades, which would seem to make them truly untouchable.
However, I would argue that only one mark from that trio is truly safe.
The first two come from basketball, where Jeff Stone torched the nets for the single-game (48 points) and single-season (644) scoring records in 1970.
Working without the three-point line, the Wolf senior led Coupeville to the state tourney for the first time in school history, one hard-earned bucket at a time.
Over the past 50 years, no one has come even remotely close to the season mark, with the second-best individual season belonging to Jeff Rhubottom in 1977-1978.
And he scored 459 points, almost 200(!) points shy of what Stone threw down.
But, I would argue, neither record is truly safe.
With the three-point explosion in full bloom, the single-game record is begging to be topped, and even the season mark (while much safer) isn’t untouchable.
Hawthorne Wolfe had back-to-back games of 34 and 33 points this winter as a sophomore, and he’s only going to get stronger, quicker, and more confident.
Paired with the explosive Xavier Murdy, who also has two seasons left, the duo are primed to go on a scoring bender.
Will they make history? We’ll see.
Wolf legends from Mike Bagby to Pete Petrov to Randy Keefe to current CHS coach Brad Sherman all made runs at Stone’s marks, but couldn’t get there.
But it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
Which brings us to the one record I will stand behind as truly untouchable.
In the spring of 1964, Bob Rea, then a CHS junior, rang up 27 strikeouts across 16 innings in a 2-1 win at Darrington.
Look at those numbers for a second, remember that the opposing pitcher, Brian Mount, also tossed 16 innings, and then go look at the modern-day pitch-count rules which govern Washington state baseball.
It’s the record which will never, ever, ever, fall.
The game was played on a dusty field made up entirely of sand and gravel.
Train tracks slashed through left field, and any ball hitting said tracks was “fair game … you got as many bases as you could touch.”
“I can still see Ray Harvey, our left fielder, looking both ways before he stepped out on the tracks to recover a well-hit ball,” Rea remembered during a 2016 interview.
With an arm made strong by hucking rocks at Snakelum Point, Rea never thought about coming out of the game that day. That’s how you played in 1964.
He would keep on throwing through four seasons of college ball, after missing his senior season at CHS with a broken leg.
Rea was also a top-flight quarterback and one of the more-proficient scorers in Wolf basketball history, but his time on the baseball diamond is what will live the longest in Coupeville lore.
So why do I think his record is the one CHS mark which is truly untouchable?
Because a modern-day pitcher would have to be nearly flawless, while getting no run support, to make a run at Rea’s mark.
High school games in Washington state are seven inning affairs, so even if a hurler struck out every single hitter he faced, he’d still need at least two extra innings to reach 27 K’s.
To break the record, that 28th whiff would come no earlier than the 10th inning (our third extra frame), and, long before then, our pitcher would run into the biggest roadblock.
In 1964, you could pitch until your arm fell off, if your coach let you. Then you could duct-tape your arm back on, and keep on flingin’ heat.
In 2020, WIAA guidelines limit hurlers to no more than 105 pitches in a single day.
Go one over that, and the offending coach is imprisoned for 20 to life in the gulag. Or something close.
With three strikes to a hitter, you’d need 84 strikes minimum to get to that 28th K, while getting a strike on at least 80% of your allotted pitches, and heaven forbid if you needed a 106th pitch to break the record.
All while your team didn’t score a single run.
And that’s the bare minimum needed.
Toss in any walks or hits or errors, and your pitcher’s margin of error to reach 28 K’s becomes about .0000000000009.
So, we go back to the basketball court, where a three-point marksman could get hot (really hot) and catch Stone’s 48-point night.
I’ve personally witnessed a Coupeville player hit as many as 10 three-balls in a JV game, and eight in a varsity tilt, so while 17 treys in a night isn’t likely, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
But 28 strikeouts in one game under modern-day rules?
Never gonna happen. Like never, ever, ever.
