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Posts Tagged ‘Ray Cook’

Ladies and gents, your true strikeout king revealed!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged baseball, Bob Barker, Bob Rea, CHS Wolves, Ray Cook, strikeout records on May 22, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Coupeville — where strikeout kings are born and bred. (David Svien photo)

Someday I will learn to stop speaking in absolutes.

Some day…

Piecing together the sports history of Coupeville is a hit-and-miss adventure, with a little nugget of info around every corner, but often buried under a pile of dust.

This morning, I felt pretty confident hailing Ray Cook as being the greatest strikeout pitcher in CHS history.

As I pointed out, he dropped 21 K’s over 13 innings in 1976 on the afternoon he won the district championship game and sent the Wolves to state.

Impressive, in every way.

But not the record, it turns out.

Yep, as unlikely as it is, there’s actually at least one other Wolf hurler out there who bettered Cook in both innings tossed and strikeouts notched.

I turn you over to my favorite pen pal, legendary former CHS coach/teacher Bob Barker, as he drops some knowledge about a pitcher from the Class of 1965:

David,

I happened to tune into your Coupeville Sports this morning and noticed your nice write up on Raymond Cook.

Under then head baseball coach Jim Hosek, Coupeville High School had some very fine baseball teams and one of the reasons was a young hurler by the name of Raymond Cook.

I have watched Ray pitch on many occasions and he was a top notch pitcher; however, he does not hold the Coupeville High School record for strikeouts in a single game.

As I mentioned to you earlier, I coached baseball at Coupeville High School for five years.

I did not keep the baseball score-book for the particular game that I am going to relate to you and in retrospect I am sorry for that mistake, but it is a game that I will never forget.

The year before I quit coaching baseball, I had a young man by the name of Bob Rea.

I had started Bob out in pitching as he had such a competitive nature, much like the competitive nature of Ray Cook.

Bob had a blazing fastball and also had developed a sharp curve.

In the game I refer to we had traveled to Darrington.

Darrington also had a very good pitcher of whose name I am unable to remember at this time.

At the end of seven innings the score was tied at 1-1. We continued into extra innings and eventually won the game 2-1 in 16 innings.

The amazing thing about this game was that both pitchers went the whole 16 innings.

The Darrington pitcher had recorded 30 strikeouts while our pitcher, Bob Rea, had recorded 27 strikeouts.

Another particular I remember about that game was that in our half of the 16th inning we had a man on base.

Our batter at the plate had a count of 3-0 so I gave him the take sign.

Either he missed the sign or the pitch was too inviting as he hit a double and drove in the winning run.

So much for coaching strategy.

Bob Barker

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Bigger than big!!

Posted in Hall o' Fame, tagged CHS Wolves, Comeback, Hall of Fame, Kacie Kiel, Madeline Strasburg, Ray Cook on May 22, 2016| Leave a Comment »

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.

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The cream of the crop!!

Posted in Hall o' Fame, tagged Bob Fasolo, Central Whidbey Little League, CHS Wolves, Hall of Fame, Makana Stone, Natasha Bamberger, Ray Cook on July 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Hall o' Fame inductees (clockwise from top left) Makana Stone, Ray Cook, Natasha Bamberger and Bob Fasolo.

Hall o’ Fame inductees (clockwise from top left) Makana Stone, Ray Cook (wearing glasses), Natasha Bamberger and Bob Fasolo.

The Mack Daddy himself, Bob Fasolo, workin’ the waves.

Central Whidbey Little League coach Chris Tumblin (left) prepares to join the dog-pile after winning a state title in 2010.

When we’re down the road and we look back, it’s going to be hard to top the class that enters the Coupeville Sports Hall o’ Fame today.

It features the greatest runner in CHS history, the strikeout king, the single most electrifying play I have personally witnessed in 25 years of covering sports, a team that shocked the state and the original Mack Daddy.

The bar has been set, and our fourth class is one for the ages.

Without further ado, we welcome Natasha Bamberger, Ray Cook, Bob Fasolo, Makana Stone and the 2010 Central Whidbey Little League Majors baseball team.

Their new home?

Look to the top of the blog and the tab marked Legends. Cause that’s where they all belong.

Ray Cook was a star when I was in kindergarten, but his accomplishments still astound.

When we talk about great pitchers who wore the red and black for CHS, we can talk about Ben Etzell and Aaron Curtin, about Brad Miller and Brad Haslam, about a lot of guys.

But, up there, by himself, at the very tip top, is Cook, who left behind a string of dejected batters.

He struck out 16 while tossing a perfect game, whiffed 17 in another game, but saved his best for the biggest moment.

Pitching in the 1976 district title game, he went 13 innings(!) to get the win, gunning down an eye-popping 21 batters.

He was Cow Town’s Nolan Ryan, and his name should be invoked every time a modern-day hurler starts settin’ ’em up and sittin’ ’em down.

If Cook ruled the ’70s, Natasha Bamberger owned the ’80s, winning four state titles as a track runner, putting her name on the school record board (where it still sits) and then doing something no Wolf had done.

Running at the A/B state cross country championships Nov. 9, 1985, she faced down 123 other runners and bested them all, breaking the tape in 19 minutes and 51 seconds.

It would take 25 years before another Coupeville runner would match her feat, when Tyler King won the 2010 1A boys XC title.

When CHS installs a new track that is currently in the planning stages, they should name it in honor of the greatest runner the school ever saw. Micky Clark Field should be encircled by the Natasha Bamberger track.

Someone get on this.

Our third inductee is a young woman who, in three years, has proven to be the single most dynamic athlete I have covered.

While Makana Stone’s career is far from over, and her time to be inducted as an athlete will come later, today we honor a play she pulled off during the 2014-2015 CHS girls’ basketball season.

Now who knows, the videotape may tell a slightly different story, and, if it does, don’t bother me with the facts. I’m printing the legend, the way I remember it happening.

Stone, midway through an MVP season in which she led her squad to its first league title in 13 years — a campaign in which the Wolves won every league game by double digits — was on fire. As usual.

Then she ripped out our eyeballs and dunked them into awesome sauce in a way I have never witnessed.

Flying high above the crowd, she hauled in a rebound, then spun and fired the ball nearly the length of the court, hitting teammate Kacie Kiel in mid-stride.

A lone defender, scrambling to get back, veered into Kiel’s path, causing her to stumble as she put up the layup. The ball skittered off the rim and then…

Sweet succotash!!!

Any other player, having made the pass, would have stayed at the far end of the court. The play was done, and you’d already be back on defense.

Stone, however, took off like a bolt of lightning as soon as she fired the ball, and she came flying like a bat out of Hell, running the length of the floor in a few graceful strides.

The ball hung on the rim and then Makana was there, swooping in, snagging the rebound and popping the ball back up and in as every jaw in the gym ricocheted off the floor.

Making half that play — either half — is the sign of a top-notch player.

Pulling off the entire thing, and then immediately backpedaling on defense as Klahowya’s collective soul lay stone-cold-dead on the floor — that’s legendary.

Our fourth inductee is already the coolest cat in the hall.

The late Bob Fasolo could do it all.

Street baller. Surfer dude. McConaughey before McConaughey was McConaughey.

Both of his sons, Rob and Eddie, were gifted basketball players, and they learned their skills from the man who always had a grin under the beard, especially when he just broke both of your ankles.

If you didn’t meet Bob, it might be hard to understand what an impact he had on others, athletically and just in general life. And, if you didn’t meet him, your life is a lot less blessed.

He was the Mack Daddy, the pimp king, the guy who was just cooler than everyone else around him, whether he was shredding waves or just giving me good-natured grief at Videoville.

I miss the dude, but I know he’s out there tonight, one with the waves.

And, to cap things off, we’re going to crowd the stage for our finale.

In 2010, three coaches and 13 players went on a trip no one expected.

Representing little ol’ Coupeville, they stared down big city squad after bigger city squad, and whipped them all.

It wasn’t just that they won a state little league title, but the way they did it, storming from behind in nearly every game and then celebrating like mad.

They weren’t given any respect at the start of the tourney, but they earned it every step of the way, and their run, both for the title and the way they won it, stands as one of the greatest athletic accomplishments this town will ever witness.

And they stayed together, with nine of the 13 playing for CHS in their senior seasons, and eight of those players suiting up all four years.

Playing as a team, as brothers, they exited the field July 24, 2010 as state champs, and they went on to become the core of a Wolf baseball program that is in a very good place five years later.

Let’s give it up, for the champs. Inducted, together, as a family:

Chris Tumblin (Coach)
Brad Trumbull (Assistant Coach)
Ramon Villaflor (Assistant Coach)
Kyle Bodamer
Brendan Coleman
Aaron Curtin
Ben Etzell
Korbin Korzan
Brian Norris
Morgan Payne
Carson Risner
Wade Schaef
Paul Schmakeit
Kurtis Smith
Aaron Trumbull
Jake Tumblin

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Etzell gunning for the record!!

Posted in Baseball, tagged baseball, Ben Etzell, Brad Miller, CHS Wolves, Ray Cook, strikeout records on April 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Ben Etzell whiffed 15 Cedarcrest hitters Monday, one of the better performances in CHS history. (John Fisken photo)

Impressive, but not a school record.

When Coupeville High School senior Ben Etzell whiffed 15 Cedarcrest batters Monday, it was the most K’s racked up by a Wolf pitcher in several years.

But do a little digging (mainly talking to the right people, since CHS doesn’t have extensive baseball records) and you find some even more impressive numbers.

The king of the mound (as far as we know) is Ray Cook, who carried Coupeville to a district title in 1976 as a junior.

In the final, he set down an astounding 21 batters over 13 innings, winning the game and sending the Wolves to state, where they lost 3-1 to Brewster in the quarterfinals.

I don’t know what’s more impressive — the 21 strikeouts or the fact he pitched all 13 innings, one inning shy of two complete high school games.

Cook was a strikeout fiend, according to Bill Jarrell. He set down 17 over seven innings in another game and whiffed 16 while tossing a perfect game in yet another appearance.

In more recent days, Brad Miller twice topped Etzell’s still-impressive work, according to CHS coach Willie Smith.

Miller gunned down 19 Sultan hitters in 1995, a year after he whiffed 18 Turks. He also recorded 14 K’s against Granite Falls in ’94.

The other Big, Bad Brad — the imposing Brad Haslam — set down 14 against Quilcene in 1990, then teamed with Frank Marti and Todd Brown to whiff 15 Winlock hitters in a 1991 regional game.

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