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Bob Barker breaks it down for you!!

March 13, 2016 by David Svien

Bob Barker (Photo courtesy Sherry Roberts)

Bob Barker, hard at work. (Photo courtesy Sherry Roberts)

Bob Barker spent 31+ years at Coupeville High School, working as a teacher, coach and Athletic Director, affecting countless lives over the years.

A 1959 grad of what would become Western Washington University, he led baseball and basketball (both boys and girls) teams at CHS, taking three to state.

Hailed by his former players as “the best coach I ever had” and “one of the three or four people who shaped who I am today,” his impact lingers long after his retirement.

In this series, Barker responds to my questions as only he can, eloquently and passionately.

Today’s question:

“Was the 1969-1970 CHS boys’ team the best basketball team in school history?”

David,

Let me set the scene a little.

The schools in the Northwest B League were members of what was I believed called a tri-district (B schools in Snohomish, Skagit and Island county.)

Based on the total enrollment of the schools this district rated a total greater than 1 but less than 1.5. I am not sure, but lets say 1.3.

This meant that we rated more than one team in the state tournament but not enough for two teams. 

There must have been other districts in the state with the same problem, hence we would get one team one year and two teams the next and so on.

Coupeville had for many years been a strong basketball school.

One thing I noticed when I came in the spring of 1959 was there was a number of outside baskets and these were always busy before school and at lunch.

Football and baseball were just something to do until basketball season rolled around.

COACH            YEAR           TOURNAMENT PLACE
Sanman           56-57                   3rd
Boushey          57-58                   3rd
Boushey          58-59                   2nd
Boushey          59-60                   2nd
Boushey          60-61                   3rd
Boushey          61-62                   3rd
Boushey          62-63                   3rd
Boushey          63-64                   3rd
Boushey          64-65                   4th
Barker              65-66                   2nd

So you can see that some of those years where there were two teams we finished 3rd and at least two years where there was one team we finished 2nd. 

It was very frustrating.

1970 was the year that Coupeville finally broke the jinx by winning the district tournament.

In 1970 we opened the season with 12 victories and were 12-0. 

In January, when the polls opened, Coupeville was rated #1 in the state in its division and Jeff Stone led the scoring for all high school players in the state.

Now a small town such as Coupeville takes great pride in their school activities.

The school district put up a special levy in February and due to the pride in our basketball team the levy passed with well over 80%, which was really unheard of.

When we won the District tournament we became the first Whidbey Island school to gain a state berth.

Now to the question, was this the best Coupeville team in history.

I am not sure that I can say that as I had a great team in 1972, but this team due to some unfortunate circumstances did not make it to state. 

In 1971 -72 the Cascade A League had lost a couple of members, hence invited La Conner and Coupeville to join their league. 

If we had joined them and declared to play up we would have had to place in the top four in the league and then go to the A tournament in Mount Vernon and compete with perennial state powers like Lynden, Lynden Christian, Mount Baker, etc. 

We agreed to come in but would go back into the B tournament at the conclusion of the season.

The members of the Cascade thought this would be alright as they could use us as cannon fodder and complete their schedules.

The problem arose that Coupeville won the Cascade League that year and La Conner placed third.

This provoked the Cascade members as they were then sending their 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th place teams to compete with the powerful teams to the North.

It also pissed off the rest of the Northwest B League teams, so they set up the tournament in such a way to extract some revenge by putting Coupeville and La Conner in the same bracket.

The Northwest B League was now sending two teams to state every year.

It should have been La Conner and Coupeville meeting in the final game and both teams going to state.

Being the lower-rated team La Conner played some team in the first round and beat them.

We, having the better record had been seeded and met La Conner.

Now ask any coach would he like to play or be seeded as that first night the kids get rid of their jitters and stage fright, which every team has.

Unfortunately we were defeated by a good La Conner team that was more relaxed than we were.

In my estimation winning the Cascade A League title in 1972 was a greater achievement than winning the district tournament in 1970, however, not as exciting as taking the first Coupeville team to state.

At that time the Cascade League contained a powerful Lakeside team, a talented King’s team, Granite Falls, Langley, Sultan and Tolt as well as La Conner.

We ended up winning the league with a record of 14-2.

One loss was to Lakeside and one to La Conner.  I believe that our season record going into the tournament was 18-2.

I probably have given you more information that you wanted but when I get started babbling it is hard to stop.

Bob Barker

Posted in Boys Basketball | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Welcome the fab four!!

March 13, 2016 by David Svien

Bill Riley (top left) is joined by (clockwise) Haley Sherman, Corey Cross and Hayley Waterman (blue shirt).

   Bill Riley (top left) is joined by (clockwise) Haley Sherman, Corey Cross and Hayley Waterman (blue shirt).

We’re bringing the generations together.

The four athletes who comprise the 38th class inducted into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame are two guys from the early ’70s and two women from the 2000s.

But, regardless of when they played, they all left a sizable impact on their alma mater.

So, with that, we’d like to welcome Bill Riley, Haley Sherman, Corey Cross and Hayley Waterman to these hallowed digital walls.

After this, you’ll find them up at the top of the blog, under the Legends tab, where they and their accomplishments will live on as long as Coupeville Sports does.

Our first two inductees, Riley and Cross, were two of the five athletes named by legendary Coupeville High School coach Bob Barker when I asked him who were the best he had seen here in Cow Town.

The other three?

That’s for me to know and you to wonder until I get around to writing that article.

For now, we want to talk about Cross, whose name still looms large over his hometown.

He was a 10-time letter winner (four in baseball, three each in football and basketball), 12 if you count rugby (which I previously was not aware had ever been a sport at CHS … back to the research desk!) and his name heads up the list of Male Athlete of the Year winners.

Cross actually won the honor twice, in 1970-1971 and 1971-1972, setting the standard for all who have come after him.

But what makes him truly worthy of induction is not just the awards. It’s the way people respond when you bring his name up in conversation.

Jaws drop. Eyes bug. Words like “incredible athlete” and “the best I’ve ever seen” come tumbling out.

Every single time.

Riley, a superb two-sport star for CHS (football and basketball), gets some of that same treatment, especially from his former coaches.

A First-Team All-League selection during his time on the hardwood, it’s there that I’ve actually been able to track some stats down, and they are still as impressive 40+ years down the road.

In ’71-’72 Riley averaged 18.7 points and 14.8 rebounds a game, then he turned that up a notch or two the next season, banging away for 23.9 and 14.4 a night.

As I’ve worked my way through years and years of Wolf athletic history, the only hoops player who I’ve found with a higher single-season scoring average than Riley’s 23.9 was Jeff Stone and his immortal 27 a game from ’69-’70.

So, pretty dang good company.

Our third inductee, Sherman, is our youngest, but there’s no need to wait for time to pass.

Haley was an impact player in both volleyball and softball, helping carry a very-thin Wolf diamond squad to the state tourney in her senior season in 2014.

Despite playing through an ankle injury she suffered at districts, The Shermanator was a standout on defense (gunnin’ down fools from left field) and at the plate, as CHS broke a 12-year dry spell, making its second-ever appearance at the big dance in the fast-pitch era.

A hard worker with a superb sense of humor, Haley was always one of the most radiant athletes we had, a true daughter of the prairie who made her large fan section (she’s basically related to 89% of the town) very proud.

Making people proud came naturally to our fourth inductee.

Waterman doesn’t have the showy stats some of the others had, but that’s largely because she took one for the team. Game after game.

In the early days of girls’ soccer at CHS, wins were few and far between. Really, really far between.

But if it wasn’t for talented booters like Hayley, who sacrificed to build the program, it wouldn’t be anywhere near where it is today, at a point where the Wolves are fighting for league titles and making repeat visits to the playoffs.

Waterman was a wild woman on the pitch, and remains one of the most incredible people I have ever known off the field.

Long before she went on to study cellular and molecular biology in college and then start doing lab work that I can’t understand even when she tries to explain it in simple terms, Hayley was brilliant.

In high school, she did every extracurricular thing you could think of (all at the same time), shepherded all her brothers and sisters (including future soccer star Paige) and still found time to be indispensable at Videoville.

It was there and later at David’s DVD Den, where she was half of The Wonder Twins with Kate Harbour, that she achieved true greatness.

The afternoon where the two created an entire fake section of DVD’s, all crafted to look like “The Brown Bunny,” a film that had scandalized our boss, just for a brief laugh, is just the tip of their shenanigans.

I have had some God awful jobs in my life, but the 15 years I spent managing video stores will always balance out the crud, and the Wonder Twins are, hands down, the best part of those years.

Sports hall of fames? Nice, sure.

But in the true Hall o’ Fame of life, Hayley and Kate will always be my first inductees.

Posted in Hall o' Fame | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Wolves have the Wright stuff!!

March 12, 2016 by David Svien

Mikayla Elfrank (John Fisken photos)

   Mikayla Elfrank, seen here during practice, scored twice in her first game as a Wolf. (John Fisken photos)

Sarah Wright

   CHS freshman Sarah Wright had an impressive debut Saturday, crunching a triple and a single while hitting into a deadly wind.

One game in and Sarah Wright already has this whole high school softball thing down pat.

Making a smashing debut, the Coupeville High School freshman catcher whacked both of her team’s hits Saturday, sparking the scrappy, small-ball-lovin’ Wolves to a 4-1 Opening Day win over visiting South Whidbey.

Overcoming a steady wind that ripped in from center field, a strikeout-happy opposing hurler and an umpire who made some calls that would indicate he might have hit the beer tent at Mussel Fest before taking the field, CHS gave new coach Kevin McGranahan a victory in his debut.

Fielding a roster without a single senior, Coupeville’s starting lineup featured two freshmen and five sophomores.

Reunited with McGranahan, who many of the current Wolves played for as little league players, they looked loose, happy and confident, a marked change from last year.

Even when they had difficulty early with Falcon pitcher Mackenzee Collins, who whiffed eight in the first three innings en route to 16 K’s on the day, Coupeville’s core never crumbled.

“The girls stayed in the game and didn’t hang their heads, even when we were down,” Kevin McGranahan said. “They’re not a team that is ever going to quit on you, and they never did.”

With Collins virtually untouchable in the early going, giving up just a walk to fellow hurler Katrina McGranahan her first time through the Wolf lineup, South Whidbey didn’t need much to take control.

The Falcons got on the scoreboard first in the top of the third, when they staged an inadvertent rally.

Katrina McGranahan had torched eight of the first nine South Whidbey hitters she faced, but then had a brief bout of wildness and walked the bags full with two outs.

Perhaps rattled just a bit, a pitch got away from her, skipped on the ground and plunked a Falcon hitter who made no effort to get out of the way.

To the disbelieving howls of Coupeville’s large (and very cold) fan base, the ump awarded South Whidbey first base, forcing home a run.

As the specter of an agonizing 1-0 loss on a questionable, at best, call, hung in the air, the Wolves simply shrugged their shoulders and went to work.

From that point on, Coupeville’s defense was superb behind their mound warrior, and Katrina McGranahan responded with precision pitches, eventually ringing up 12 strikeouts of her own.

Playing error-less ball, with middle infielders Jae LeVine and Mikayla Elfrank both pulling off superb plays on tricky balls, the Wolves set themselves up to retake the lead, and immediately responded.

And they did it with panache, using small ball, gutty base-running and a go-go style to rattle the Falcons.

Coupeville broke through in the bottom of the fourth, putting two across (though it should have been three).

Elfrank, a former Falcon playing her first game in the red and black, led off with a walk, then scampered to third, taking advantage of tentative play from South Whidbey’s catcher.

She came around to knot things up a play later, on another botched play by the Falcons, before Wright finally recorded Coupeville’s first hit of the season.

It was a ferociously-hit single which took off like a rocket, hit an air pocket, spun in place in mid-air, then plopped at the edge of the infield as three infielders went in different directions.

On the edge of falling apart, the Falcons lost the lead on a successful steal of home by Katrina McGranahan, but were saved (for a moment) when Wright was called out on a bang-bang play at home.

This despite clearly sliding under the catcher’s glove, beating the throw by what felt like a good five or six seconds.

Clinging to a 2-1 lead, instead of continuing to rack up runs, the Wolves just kept at it, seemingly oblivious to any wailing from their fan section.

Thoroughly in command when in the field, Coupeville tacked on two more runs in the sixth.

Elfrank reached base when the Falcon catcher dropped a third strike, then whipped the ball off the runner’s back while scrambling to recover.

Though sporting a potential new bruise, the Wolf sophomore boldly took second and third on consecutive pitches before charging home on yet another passed ball.

Wright capped things with the one truly magnificent hit of the afternoon.

With Katrina McGranahan perched on base, the frosh phenom mashed a ball that shot down the first base line, low enough to evade the slicing wind.

Curving viciously, Wright’s shot ripped a chunk out of the outfield grass in fair territory, then shot to the right and headed for the shrubbery as a Falcon vainly tried to snag it.

By the time the ball came back in, Wright had hauled tail into third with the first, but undoubtedly far from the last, triple of her prep career.

The three-bagger earned plenty of hooting and hollering from the bleachers, where the player Wright most resembles in terms of game-changing power, former CHS slugger Hailey Hammer, was camped out.

It was the perfect cap to an auspicious start for a young, talented squad whose future is as bright as the sun that finally broke out, in typical Whidbey fashion, just when it was time for fans to go home.

Posted in Softball | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments »

Young guns get taste of big time!!

March 12, 2016 by David Svien

(Photo courtesy Abbie Martin)

The Wolves have fun at an earlier game. (Photo courtesy Abbie Martin)

(Photo courtesy Cheridan Eck)

   Coupeville has invaded the Spokane Convention Center. (Photo courtesy Cheridan Eck)

Now they’re playing with the big boys.

Day one of the state tournament was a learning experience for the Coupeville 7th grade SWISH boys’ basketball squad.

A huge one.

Facing a big, veteran Tahoma team, the Wolves, who are a mix of 6th and 7th graders, struggled on the boards in the first half and were never able to fully recover, falling 53-21.

Coupeville returns to action Saturday morning in Spokane and will play three more games before the three-day tourney wraps up Sunday.

With Tahoma scorching the nets, and ripping down what few rebounds were available, the Wolves trailed 34-9 at the break.

The second half was an improvement, as Coupeville held its own, getting a boost of self confidence moving forward.

Jake Mitten paced the Wolves with eight points and six rebounds, while Matthew Kelley filled up the stat sheet with seven points, two boards, four assists and three blocked shots.

Daniel Olson, Dakota Eck and Alex Jimenez each dropped in a bucket to round out the scoring.

While Jimenez was scoring, he was also becoming a big brother, as his mom Lorena gave birth to Joshua back in Coupeville.

Eck snatched four rebounds and dealt out two assists, while Michael Laska (a rebound, an assist and a steal), Connor Barton (a rebound) and Hawthorne Wolfe (a rebound and a steal) all chipped in.

Posted in Boys Basketball | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Birthday boys unite for big day!!

March 12, 2016 by David Svien

Nick Dion (John Fisken photos)

  Nick Dion plays through the rain splatters during Friday’s jamboree. (John Fisken photo)

Lodell

Mike Lodell wants you to know it’s always sunny inside his brain.

Dion

   “Nice try, Lodell. But there are two small lakes inside my shoes and I’m 98.2% sure I’m never going to be warm again.” (Fisken photo)

It’s a birthday 2-for-1 special in Wolf Nation.

Saturday brings the cake day to Coupeville High School junior Nick Dion, a true scholar/athlete, and that irrepressible king of the grounds-keeping crew, Mike “Mr. Sunshine” Lodell.

They may be separated by a few years (we’ll say Lodell is old enough to be Dion’s … older brother), but they both play vital roles in Cow Town.

Dion is a super-smart whiz kid who, when he’s not dominating fools in Science Olympiad, is also a hard-working two-sport athlete.

Whether the game is tennis or soccer, Nick flies around the playing surface, fighting through every play.

Dude has no quit in him, and remains one of the nicest guys who will, without a doubt, slay you in two worlds.

Athletically, he’s a scrapper. Academically, he’s a juggernaut.

Put the two together and you have one of the very best Coupeville has to offer the world.

Now, Lodell, the smooth-talking master of the laid-back McConaughey-style vibe, is just as impressive in his own way.

A movie junkie, father of two (Noah and Hope) and notorious street ball assassin, Mike can brighten even the darkest day on the prairie.

Even if he is so good at his job that one day last spring we spent three hours being drenched while watching softball, because his work on the field made it super-resistant to the liquid daggers slashing the fans to pieces.

No matter how miserable the weather got, the field not only stayed playable, it brought oohs and ahs from the umps.

Any other town, any other field, the game would have been called off in the first inning and we would have all gone home to dry clothes and a cup o’ tea.

Not here, as Lodell’s handiwork kept the CHS field, and the softball schedule, chugging along beautifully (even as we all good-naturedly cursed him repeatedly).

Of course, deep down (right down to our sodden boxer shorts), our respect for Mike’s handiwork grew even more that day.

Even if we did contemplate beating him with a large stick for being too dang good at his job…

Like Dion, Mike brings a deep commitment to everything he does, which is why I know, without a doubt, today’s scheduled softball opener against South Whidbey (12 PM) is going on, regardless of how dank the weather looks through my sliding glass door.

Dang it, Lodell, you magnificent, Mother Nature-bustin’ bastard!!

Well, that’s fine, cause when I’m soaked a few hours from now, and they’re still playing, I’ll give him a surprise birthday hug and hold on long enough until I make sure he’s soaked too.

But anyways … happy joint cake day Nick and Mike.

May your day shine as brightly as the sun I (naively) hope will peek through the clouds when the ump says “Play ball.”

Posted in Happy birthday | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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