Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Basketball’

“Strong Mike,” never forgotten!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, tagged , , , , on September 2, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Mike Criscuola poured in 979 points on the hardwood between 1956-1960, fifth most in school history. (Jack Sell photo)

The past has many tales to tell.

There are many reasons to push for record boards for every sport at Coupeville High School, and remembering and honoring those who have come before us is a primary one.

By digging into the past and putting in hours buried in newspaper archives, the back room of school libraries and the occasional attic or basement, we can, and will, better preserve our town’s sports legacy.

My current project, trying to sift through 100 years of CHS boys basketball and 44 years of Wolf girls hoops, with that history largely scattered to the wind in a billion little pieces, has been equal parts frustrating and enlightening.

Barring the sudden creation of a time machine, reality is this — we can’t put together a complete, 100% accurate history of our town’s high school basketball teams.

It’s just not possible. Too many records have been lost, or never kept in the first place.

But balancing out that doom and gloom is that it is possible to unearth a lot that was once thought lost. To swing the spotlight back to those who should have been remembered earlier.

One such person is Mike Criscuola, or, as I have taken to calling him in recent days, The Lost Legend of the ’50s.

As I pull together a pretty-close-to-comprehensive list of the top 10 scorers in CHS hoops history, many of the names are ones I expected to find.

Jeff Stone, Randy Keefe, Brad Sherman.

Before checking a single old stat sheet, newspaper story or yearbook, I would have put money on that trio, so, finding they sit #1, #3 and #8 all-time, respectively, is hardly a surprise.

But Criscuola was not a name I had heard before, and, without this latest round of research, he would have been lost in the annuals of time to me.

Which would have been a shame, since he scored the fifth-most points of any Wolf boys basketball player.

He was a man among boys, literally towering over most of his teammates, from the moment he made his varsity high school basketball debut in 1955-1956 … as an eighth grader.

Criscuola only appeared in four varsity games that year, missing his lone free throw attempt and failing to score.

But, from that moment on, he would be a fixture for the Wolves, one of the most consistent players ever to pull on the jersey.

Standing 6-foot-2 and weighing in at around 220 during his playing days, Criscuola knocked down 115 points as a freshman (fifth-best on the team) and 253 (third-best) as a sophomore.

His final two years, ’58-’59 and ’59-’60, he led the Wolves in scoring, going off for 306 and 305 points, respectively, to bring his high school career total to 979 points.

During his junior season, Criscuola led Coupeville to within a whisker of one of the great postseason upsets of all time.

La Conner and Darrington were overwhelming favorites at districts, and the first page of the tourney program devoted 80% of its space to listing their strengths.

Coupeville got a lonely paragraph at the end, a brief mention of “Strong Mike” and had, in the opinion of the writer, “faint hopes.”

Ha!

The Wolves savaged Sultan 42-25, drilled Darrington (and its 6-foot-7 center, Randy Phillips) 47-36, then lost a donnybrook with La Conner in the title game, falling 62-55 as the Braves earned a trip to state.

It would be 11 years more before Stone and the ’69-’70 Wolves became the first Whidbey Island hoops team to win a district title, but a statement had been made in ’59 by “Strong Mike.”

Criscuola was (I believe) the school’s career scoring leader at his graduation, and held that mark for a decade, until Stone topped him right before graduating in ’70.

Even now, 57 years after his last game as a Wolf, with the addition of the three-point shot and a much-quicker, offensive-orientated game, Criscuola’s output stands tall.

Stone (1137), Mike Bagby (1104), Keefe (1088) and Jeff Rhubottom (1012) are the only CHS players to have surpassed him in almost six decades of play.

Somewhere down the road, hopefully soon, when CHS raises a basketball record board, Criscuola’s name will be back in the spotlight.

Until then, we’d like to take a moment today to welcome “Strong Mike” into the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame.

After this, his name will live up at the top of the blog, under the Legends tab, forever a vital part of our town’s sports history.

Read Full Post »

Wolves delivered some licks in ’56!!

Posted in Baseball, Basketball, Boys Tennis, Cheer, Football, tagged , , , , , on August 27, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   The Big Bad (Coupeville) Wolf gets star billing on the 1956 CHS yearbook cover. (Jack Sell photos/yearbook courtesy Sandy Roberts)

   Sandy Roberts, grandfather of current Wolf three-sport star Lindsey Roberts, back when he was a bright-eyed 14-year-old freshman.

The 1955 CHS cheer squad was thin on numbers, but strong on lung power.

   Wolf hoops star Jack Elzinga. If I was alive and covering sports back then, I would have nicknamed him “The Zinger.”

   Principal, teacher, coach, class advisor — Mert Waller, father of current Whidbey News-Times Sports Editor Jim Waller, did it all in those days.

If you wanted a song, and not a cheer, this trio were who you called.

   After a four-year absence, the Wolves returned to the gridiron (and whomped Oak Harbor).

Certain years in Coupeville High School sports history stand out.

Try 1969-1970, which gave us the greatest show on Earth — or at least in Cow Town — as Jeff Stone tickled the twines for an astonishing 644 points in one season as the high-scoring Wolves became the first Whidbey Island basketball team to win a district title.

Or take a gander at 2001-2002, when the CHS girls went to state in volleyball, basketball and softball, bringing home banners in the latter two sports.

That softball run, with four wins in five games at the state tourney, losing only to eventual champ Adna, was the closest any Coupeville squad has come to winning a team state title.

But today we’re here to talk about 1955-1956.

And why is that?

Cause, thanks to Sandy Roberts, who was a bright-eyed freshman that year, I’m holding a pristine yearbook in my hand.

Roberts would go on to be an athlete and a scholar, a successful coach and a papa whose two sons and (so far) three of his grandchildren would all star for his alma mater.

These days, he’s a few years older, yet still just as bright-eyed.

Thanks to him, I now know the graduating class of ’56 was 26 students deep (14 girls, 12 boys) and helped spur a pretty decent sports year for the Wolves.

It began on the gridiron, where Coupeville returned to football after a four-year absence.

Playing under coach Mert Waller, the Wolves made their return an auspicious one, throttling Oak Harbor 24-0 behind senior QB Jerry Zylstra.

It was back to reality after that, as CHS dropped its final four games, though all were fairly close.

The Wolves fell 13-7 to Langley, 14-13 to Everett, 13-0 to Marysville and 18-6 in a rematch with pesky Langley.

All that was forgotten about as fall turned into winter, though, as Coupeville’s basketball squad roared out of the gate and never looked back.

With Waller unleashing a lineup led by senior Jack Elzinga, who topped the Wolves in scoring for a second-straight year, CHS blitzed through the regular season to a 14-3 tune.

That included a pair of wins over Oak Harbor (50-41 and 66-49) and Langley (41-33 and 46-38), and, more importantly, a sweep of La Conner (75-68 and 41-39).

While the Braves slipped away with the Northwest Tri-County League title by a whisker, Coupeville was the only conference team to hand them a loss.

Coming off their second-place league showing, the Wolves opened the district tourney with wins over Monroe (61-46) and Darrington (61-57), but were upended 65-54 by Twin City in the semis.

Coupeville then closed with a razor-thin 54-51 loss to La Conner, settling for second place.

The Wolves had come close to a district title, but, as history now tells us, were still 14 years away from making Whidbey Island history.

Somewhere a four-year-old Jeff Stone was biding his time, whispering “Soon, soon…”

Spring brought boys tennis and baseball, with the netters finishing 5-3 under the coaching of Jack Berry.

The Wolves won two of three matches against Oak Harbor, continuing a year of domination over their Northern rivals, but Friday Harbor nipped CHS for the league title.

On the diamond, Waller’s warriors had four batters top .314 at the plate (Meryl Gordon legged out five triples, while Harold Buckner smashed five doubles) to spark a 10-5 season.

This time around, the Wolves took three of four against Oak Harbor.

With ’56 being pre-Title IX, Coupeville girls did get a taste of sports, but just a taste.

There was cheer and the G.A.A. (Girls’ Athletic Association) also brought together 21 Wolves, led by President Norma Sinema and Vice President Janice Libbey, for Friday night competition in basketball, volleyball and baseball.

Those young women would one day see their daughters and granddaughters get the chance to compete in a way they were denied, but they were trailblazers for the time.

The members of the G.A.A.:

Patricia Clark
Vicky Criscuola
Barbara Hadaway
Dolores Harper
Judy Huffman
Kathy Johnson
Rocky Johnson
Hannelore Langanka
Peggy Lanphere
Janice Libbey
Arlie Lynch
Gladys Mackey
Pat Maurer
Marilu Pierce
Betty Jo Schreiber
Reva Scott
Susan Sherman
Sally Shrum
Norma Sinema
Beverly Vaughan
Marcia Vercoe

Thanks to the yearbook, I also have pristine stats for two of the four main sports, so numbers for basketball and baseball:

 

Baseball:

Player AB Hits Runs 2B 3B HR Avg.
Harold Buckner 57 20 16 5 2 1 .351
Bob Lanphere 60 21 14 1 2 .350
Jerry Zylstra 53 18 16 2 .340
Meryl Gordon 51 16 14 2 5 1 .314
Len Buckner 49 13 9 1 1 .265
John Moskeland 54 12 10 3 .222
Denny Zylstra 45 10 6 2 .222
Dick Yake 45 7 5 1 .156
Pat Clark 33 3 3 .091
Gary Hammons 19 1 5 .052
Peter Whelan 1 .000
Bill Grasser 1 1 .000
TOTALS 467 121 105 16 10 3 .259

 

Basketball:

Player Games FG FT Fouls Points Avg.
Pat Clark 21 58 71 61 187 8.9
Blaine Ghormley 20 63 41 46 167 8.4
Jack Elzinga 21 123 63 67 309 14.7
Harold Buckner 21 67 37 31 171 8.1
Jerry Zylstra 21 59 72 43 190 9.1
Doug Speers 19 9 15 19 33 1.7
John Moskeland 13 3 2 3 8 0.6
Len Buckner 13 7 2 4 16 1.2
Denny Zylstra 8 6 4 3 16 2.0
Gary Hammons 10 4 3 4 11 1.1
Meryl Gordon 6 1 2 1 0.2
Mike Criscoula 4 1
Gene Jaeger 5 1
David Vaughan 2
TOTALS 21 399 311 285 1109 52.8

Read Full Post »

Mom’s example powers newest Wolf to success!!

Posted in Basketball, Football, tagged , , , , , on August 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Ashton Prats flies for yardage while playing for Oak Harbor last season. (John Fisken photo)

Prats goes up for a bucket during a basketball game. (Submitted photo)

It starts and ends with his mother.

Whether he’s on the football field or basketball court, in the classroom or tackling everyday life, Ashton Prats always has his heart set on making the woman who brought him into the world proud.

“My mom has fought through the hardest of times to make sure I had a roof over my head, dinner on the table,” Prats said. “She has made sure that I know things don’t get easy until they’re done being hard.

“I respect her so much as a person and as my mother,” he added. “Without her I wouldn’t have the self drive I do today to keep bettering myself on and off the field every day.”

Prats recently transferred from Oak Harbor and will be a junior at Coupeville High School when the new school year begins.

“I decided to switch about halfway through summer because I thought it would be more beneficial academically,” he said.

Having started playing football in the fifth grade, Prats is a veteran on the gridiron, and one who already has some connection with the Wolves.

And by connection, we mean he ran over them during a JV game last season, when he bolted for three touchdowns on the ground and almost got a fourth one on a 74-yard interception return.

Now, he’ll be wearing red, black and white instead of purple and gold, and hopes to help Coupeville in whatever way he can.

“I think my strengths are helping other players, tackling, and power running,” Prats said. “My goals for the season are to better myself as a player and to help the team make it to a championship.

“I also want to observe my teammates and see how they play, so I can play more efficiently with them.”

Prats, who also played basketball for Oak Harbor, enjoys “spending time with my girlfriend, playing pick-up basketball and hanging out with my friends.”

He hails “The Blind Side” as a top movie pick, and red is his favorite color — which fits nicely with his new school.

As he works with his new teammates, Prats remembers how it all began, and what drives him.

“I started playing because I’ve always loved watching football, so I wanted to play,” he said. “I enjoy going through hard times and good times with the team, through winning and losing streaks, and watching all our hard work pay off on Friday nights.”

Read Full Post »

It’s about dang time!!

Posted in Basketball, Hall o' Fame, tagged , , , , , on August 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Jeff Rhubottom (top, left) is joined by (clockwise from top right) Bill Jarrell, Randy Keefe and Terry (Perkins) Powell (wearing blue necklace).

Better late than never.

As I’ve constructed the one-man, semi-real shrine to excellence known as the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame, I’ve zigged and I’ve zagged, plucking excellence from all decades.

And yet, I would be the first to admit, my decision-making process has always been at least slightly suspect.

Some people got in really early, and sometimes, for a thousand different reasons, some of the most qualified have been left to bide their time outside the doors of our digital hall.

Almost always it wasn’t intentional. I promise.

Today, we’re making up for that, at least a little, with the induction of four of the most talented Wolves to ever put a basketball into the bucket.

They all played multiple sports, and were standouts regardless of the season, but, with my recent deep dive into the CHS basketball records — which exist in a million little pieces — this fab four looms even larger.

So, way, way, WAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY overdue, let’s welcome Randy Keefe, Terry (Perkins) Powell, Bill Jarrell and Jeff Rhubottom to the Hall o’ Fame.

After this, you’ll find them up at the top of the blog, under the Legends tab, which is something they’ve always been, even if this writer has taken forever to get them enshrined.

Our first inductee, Powell, stands as one of the first true girls basketball stars in Central Whidbey history.

She led the Wolves in scoring for three consecutive seasons, tossing in 194 points in 1984-1985, 165 in the ’85-’86 campaign, then topping things off with a 314-point barrage in ’86-’87.

Working in tandem with fellow Hall o’ Famer Marlene Grasser (who netted 307 points that year), Powell was the leader of the first CHS girls hoops team to advance to the playoffs.

At the time of her graduation, Powell held the school single-season and career scoring marks for girls.

The increased pace of the game and addition of the three-point shot allowed a handful of other Wolves to eventually catch and pass her, but she remains #7 in career scoring with 673 points.

Her fellow inductees dominated in the ’70s, and the fact all three remain in the top 10 with both career and single-season scoring marks, is made more remarkable by two facts.

One, they all played before everyone and their brother got three points for hitting a shot behind the arc, and two, they suited up at a time when ninth graders either didn’t play high school basketball or were firmly affixed to the very end of the bench by their coaches.

That didn’t stop any of the three, though.

Keefe and Jarrell’s high school hoops careers ran from the ’73-’74 season (their sophomore campaign) through a journey to the state tourney in ’75-’76 as seniors.

One was maybe the most consistent scorer in school history, while the other caught his buddy at the end with a season for the ages.

CHS boys basketball has played 100 seasons (1917-2017), and Keefe owns two of the 10 best single season performances.

He rattled home 293 points as a sophomore, 398 as a junior (#7 all-time) and 397 as a senior (#8 all-time), leaving him with 1,088 points, third-best in program history.

Only two guys beat him, Jeff Stone (1137) and Mike Bagby (1104), and Stone had to throw down an Island-record 644 points as a senior to assure that, while Bagby, playing in the modern era, got a full four years as a varsity starter.

Jarrell didn’t come out of the gate quite as quickly as his running mate, settling for 83 points as a sophomore, fifth-best on that year’s team.

Then, something clicked and he went off for 357 points as a junior and 415 as a senior.

Snapping Keefe’s two-year run as team scoring champ, Jarrell’s senior heroics stand as the fifth-best single-season performance, and his 855 points lands him at #10 on the career list.

That ’75-’76 squad was one of the best the school ever had, and, along with the hot-shooting senior duo of Keefe and Jarrell, the Wolves got a huge contribution from a rampaging 6-foot-4 sophomore named Rhubottom.

He pounded away for 228 points as a sophomore, then took on even more of the scoring load over the next two seasons.

Rhubottom knocked down 325 as a junior (backing up Foster Faris, who went off for 348), then unleashed a beat-down as a senior.

By the time he was finished with the ’77-’78 season, Rhubottom had 459 points, which remains the second-best single season in school history, boys or girls, trailing just Stone’s once-in-a-century performance.

His 1012 career points will have him sitting #4 on that list when CHS raises a basketball record board.

Now, of course, we haven’t talked about the hundreds upon hundreds of rebounds hauled down, the assists doled out, the steals made off, or all the small plays this four-pack made.

But, even just talking about their scoring ability, it’s easy to see why Powell, Keefe, Jarrell and Rhubottom remain among the biggest stars to ever grace the CHS hardwood.

Hall o’ Famers, one and all, even if they had to wait way too long for it to be “official.”

Read Full Post »

Big man, big legend!!

Posted in Boys Basketball, Football, Track, Where are they now?, tagged , , , , , on August 12, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Jeff and Cindy Rhubottom. (Contributed photos)

   A flashback to the days when Rhubottom terrorized Wolf rivals on the hardwood.

   The socks were extraordinary, and so was their ability to put the ball in the hoop.

“Respect yourself. Respect your school.”

Jeff Rhubottom was one of the best athletes to ever walk the hallways of Coupeville High School, and he lived by that credo.

A 6-foot-4 tower of power, the 1978 Wolf grad was a 12-time letter winner (four times each in football, basketball and track and field), a two-time All-Conference hoops player and the school record holder in the high jump for more than a decade.

While fellow football player Rich Wilson (6-4) nipped Rhubottom’s mark (6-2) in 2000 — and retains the school record 17 years later — Rhubottom’s legacy still looms large.

He torched the basketball nets for 459 points his senior season in 1977-1978, the second-best single-season mark ever put up a Wolf, boy or girl.

Over the course of four seasons, while sharing the ball with some of the biggest scorers and sweetest shooters in CHS hoops history, he finished with 1,012 points.

In 100 seasons of Wolf boys basketball, only Jeff Stone (1137), Mike Bagby (1104) and Rhubottom contemporary Randy Keefe (1088) have topped that.

While he enjoyed his other sports (he was a tight end/outside linebacker in football and a sprinter, relay runner and state meet-qualifying high jumper on the track oval), basketball was always Rhubottom’s favorite.

“Making the starting five on the varsity squad in basketball my sophomore year” was a particular highlight, which allowed him to “play with great athletes like Bill Jarrell, Randy Keefe, Marc Bisset and Foster Faris.”

That unit played for legendary CHS coach Bob Barker, a man who had a huge positive impact on Rhubottom.

“Coach Barker (was a favorite) for his professionalism,” Rhubottom said. “I remember him quoting as he was handing out our red blazers, ‘You’re representing yourself as an athlete and you’re representing Coupeville High School’.”

CHS football coach Pat Lippincott and track guru Craig Pedlar (“great teacher, great coach”) also helped shaped the young Rhubottom into the man he became.

“Coach Pedlar brought Michael Ellsworth, Jeff Fielding, and myself to the State A Finals in Yakima in 1978,” Rhubottom said. “It was great to be involved with great athletes of the school.

“It’s what you did on Friday nights.”

Whether it was standing tall at the state tourney or ripping through the line to block a punt against Concrete, before scooping up the loose ball and taking it to the house for a touchdown, Rhubottom played with passion, for himself and his teammates.

“I loved and respected the athletic program, playing with great athletes in a small town.”

The lessons he learned as a Wolf benefited Rhubottom as he went on to build his own family (he has a son, Jeff, Jr.) and a career in the painting business.

“Working hard and being responsible and trying to stay in the best physical shape as the years go by. Keeping active,” have been his guiding principals.

Rhubottom considers himself “totally blessed,” having been married to Cindy, “the most beautiful, loving wife, mother, and grandmother” until she lost her battle with cancer in September, 2016.

Being “surrounded by loving new and old family” has helped him greatly.

As he looks back at his own career, Rhubottom calls on today’s Wolves to seize the day.

“Respect yourself. Respect your school. Give 110%. Enjoy the experience,” he said. “Have fun, because it goes by quick.

“Keep active. Always love the sport,” Rhubottom added. “It was fun to take a trip down memory road of my athletic career at Coupeville High School. These are memories I will cherish forever.”

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »