Rich Morris banged home a team-high 21 on the night in question. What night that is, we’re not really sure. (Photo courtesy Kristina Morris)
The game time forgot. (David Svien photo)
It’s the game everyone would be talking about, if they even remember it happened.
The night Coupeville got torched for 36 points by a future D-1 hoops star, yet still won by double digits and almost broke 100 points.
It’s the stuff of legend, buried deep in the back pages of an old score-book from decades ago, unearthed by a guy with too much time on his hands and a burning desire to explore the hidden stories of Central Whidbey sports.
So, at this point, you’re either on the edge of your seat or I already lost you.
Let me explain.
Having forced former Coupeville High School boys’ basketball coach Randy King to momentarily part with 20-years of score-books (1991 to 2011), I’ve been poking through them and seeing what popped out.
In the back of his first book, in between a bunch of blank pages, there’s a game that doesn’t fit.
There’s no date listed, but it couldn’t be from ’91-’92, because the players involved would have still been in middle school.
We’re talking guys who were some of the greatest scoring machines in school history — Pete Petrov, Rich Morris, Arik Garthwaite, Greg White, Nick Sellgren.
So, when was this game played and was it a varsity or a JV game?
By process of elimination, it seems unlikely to be a varsity contest.
The players on the roster are wrong for a varsity game from Petrov’s first two years in ’93-’94 or ’94-’95 (the stars of those teams, Gabe McMurray and Brad Miller, are nowhere to be found).
The players fit better with the next two years, but the uniform numbers listed for this game don’t match whatsoever with what is listed for EVERY varsity game in the ’95-’96 book.
To top things off, the ’96-’97 book has a gorgeous (and rare, I might add) complete game-by-game rundown with scores in the front of the book, with no appearance by Ritzville.
So, unless everyone switched out uniforms — for ONE game — the most likely scenario is it’s a JV game (or, for that matter, a C-team game, since the Wolves fielded a freshman team for a bit way back in the day) from ’93-’94.
And someone chose to record it in the last couple of pages of the first spare book they could find.
Once you get past all that, the next thing that jumps out is the huge scrawled numbers telling you Coupeville beat Ritzville 96-73.
Which is not true, since whomever did the books (there’s no name listed like on most games) can’t add right. Their own stats equal up to 95-74.
Still, that’s a heck of a lot of points for a JV or C game (if it was one), and that’s when your eyes slide to Ritzville’s side of the book and you see a guy named John Galbreath went off for 36 points.
He made 11 field goals and 11 free throws, and with that second number beat Coupeville by himself.
The Wolves stunk up the joint at the line that night, netting just 8 of 24 (Ritzville was 25-39), yet still rolled to a win.
A little research on the internet and you find out Galbreath was a pretty dang good player, and the Wolves were not the only team he torched during his career.
By the time he was a six-foot-five senior point guard, he led Ritzville to the Class B state semifinals, where they lost a heart-breaker in overtime to Darrington.
After that came a stint at Big Bend Community College, a two-year LDS mission, then two years of D-1 ball in California.
In 2011 he resurfaced as a JV girls coach at his alma mater, where he led his first Ritzville squad to an 18-0 record.
But while Galbreath was on fire that mysterious night against the Wolves, he wasn’t the only one.
Coupeville dropped 31 points in the first quarter, with Morris hammering home 10, and never looked back.
Up 13 at the half, the Wolves sealed the deal with a 29-19 third quarter — White and Garthwaite each knocked home seven points in the span — then coasted home for the win.
Ten players scored for CHS, led by Morris, who popped for 21 before fouling out.
Petrov added 15, Sellgren and White 14 apiece (the score-keeper listed White with 15, but his stats say otherwise) and Garthwaite 13.
Mike Vaughan (6), Jeremy Staples (4), Scott Stuurmans (4), Keith Dunnagan (2) and Jerry Helm (2) rounded out the Wolf attack, with Christian Townsdin, Gary Boyke and Dan Palmquist seeing floor time.
Palmquist, a player who doesn’t appear in any varsity games that I saw in the other books, would seem to seal the deal on the game being a JV or C game.
Part of me wants an answer, to know when the game was played, and at what level.
The other part of me likes the idea of a long-forgotten game just buried, by choice or accident, deep in the back of a random score-book, a small riddle never to be solved.
One small, mysterious moment in the long, rich and often confounding history of Coupeville athletics.
UPDATE: Garthwaite was a varsity player for all four years, so now we’re back to thinking it was a varsity game. Only, the actual 95-96 book has a full 20-game regular season schedule and five playoff games in it, with no mention of Ritzville.
The 96-97 book has 19 games in the official book, with all the game scores listed in the front of the book. But, if it’s a missing game from that year, where’s Dennis Terrell, who appears in every one of those 19 games?
Plus, what’s up with Palmquist? Was this his only varsity game ever?
The mystery rolls on.
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