Ray Cook (blue shirt) and Madeline Strasburg are joined by part of the 2014-15 CHS girls hoops team — l to r, Makana Stone, Kacie Kiel, Wynter Thorne and Hailey Hammer.
Maddie Big Time (Robert Bishop photo)
They were the biggest of big-time performances.
As we usher in the 48th class inducted into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, we’re focusing on an athlete who always lived up to the nickname Big Time, and two performances which were otherworldly.
The afternoon Ray Cook whiffed 21 batters and a basketball game in which Coupeville came from eight down with 58 seconds to play share the stage with one of the most electrifying figures in sports entertainment — Maddie Big Time, AKA Madeline Strasburg.
After this, both performances and our one-of-a-kind athlete will be found at the top of this blog, enshrined under the Legends tab.
First up we’re honoring Cook, who is already in the Hall for his body of work.
Today we’re paying tribute to his performance as a high school junior in the 1976 district baseball title game.
The best strikeout-tossin’ hurler in CHS history, hands down, Cook had already racked up games with 17 and 16 K’s.
This time out, though, he threw an unbelievable 13 innings (nearly the equal of two regular seven-inning high school games), setting school records for K’s and innings that haven’t been touched in 40 years.
The closest anyone has come was Brad Miller, who sent 19 batters back to the bench crying in a 1995 game.
The 13 innings from one pitcher? A modern-day coach would be nationally lambasted.
The ’76 title game win propelled Coupeville to state, and the 21 whiffed batters sent Cook, already a legend, into Wolf immortality.
In terms of one-time “wow factor,” his work on the mound is matched by the best comeback I ever witnessed in person.
It was a Saturday in late 2014 (Dec. 13 if you’re checking the calendar) and the CHS girls’ basketball squad, at the time repping the smallest 1A school in the state, was hosting Sequim, a larger 2A school which came to town bearing a snazzy 3-1 record.
The Wolf girls would win a league title that season, but, on this day, they stunk for a good chunk of time.
Wolf coach David King was speechless at the half, his players were visibly frustrated, and it was a wonder the game wasn’t more of a blowout.
But, somehow, Coupeville hung around, just long enough for the magic to happen.
And when it hit, it was so unbelievable it still seems like a fever dream to this day.
Down 39-31 with 58 seconds to play, things were beyond dire.
Key the greatest minute in Wolf hoops history.
Kacie Kiel dropped in a free throw, Wynter Thorne knocked down a jumper (her first points of the day), then Makana Stone jumped in front of a Sequim pass and took it back for a layup.
The visitors looked rattled and promptly shanked the front end of a 1-and-1 off the rim, but CHS couldn’t take advantage.
At a time when EVERY single play was going to have to go Coupeville’s way, the Wolves, down by three, threw the ball away with eight ticks on the clock.
A trickle of fans headed for the exits (trying to beat the “crushing” Cow Town traffic, maybe?) but Stone wasn’t having it.
Bellowing “no fouls! no fouls!,” the soft-spoken junior forced a turnover in the back-court, then found Kiel curling into the deepest part of the right corner.
So far out in the weeds she was practically sitting in the bleachers, the Wolf senior, an ever-smiling assassin, drilled the bottom out of the net with an impossibly high, arcing three-ball that set off pandemonium.
Overtime was pointless, but sweet.
Sequim’s players were already crying on the bench before the extra period even tipped off, and Coupeville held the visitors scoreless for five minutes to put the cap on a 42-39 win.
Afterwards, the visiting coach sat on the floor, motionless, his back against the scorer’s table, looking like someone who had just witnessed the end of the world.
Around him, Coupeville players went bonkers, and the die-hard Wolf supporters (the ones who didn’t ankle to the exits early) joined them, led by leather-lunged super fan Steve Kiel, who hit levels of screaming joy never before witnessed.
Wins come and wins go, but this one? My goodness.
So let’s give a shout-out to coaches David and Amy King and the eight Wolves who played in the game — Stone, Kiel, Thorne, Monica Vidoni, Hailey Hammer, McKenzie Bailey, Mia Littlejohn and Julia Myers.
Now, there should have been another Wolf on the court that day, but Strasburg was battling back through an injury and was instead an unpaid, but highly-enthusiastic assistant coach.
When she was healthy, which was most of the time, Maddie Big Time was a three-way terror (volleyball, basketball, softball) who delighted in rising to the occasion.
If she hit a home run, it wasn’t going to be a little poocher that rolled around in the outfield, it was going to be a majestic moon shot that left the prairie and headed down South to land at the ferry dock.
Want a spike, a teeth-rattling, knee-buckling laser that had to be perfectly flawless or else the entire match would end on the spot?
Cue Strasburg, who would come barreling in, screaming like a banshee as she elevated and decimated.
And basketball? She was like lightning in a bottle.
At one point, she hit half-court three-point bombs in consecutive games, from the same exact spot on the floor, at the same exact moment (final play of the third quarter) … 17 days apart.
Always among the most personable and free-wheeling of athletes, Maddie was a delight in every way, on and off the court, truly unforgettable.
