It was a good deal to see a nearly full house in the Oak Harbor gymnasium late last month when the Wildcats hosted Coupeville for a boys basketball game.
Reportedly, the last time the teams got together was in the late 1950s, and that’s too doggone long for two schools that are so close not to have squared off against one another on the basketball court.
It doesn’t make any difference if Oak Harbor is a Class 4A school while Coupeville is 1A. In past years, I’ve seen some 1A teams go up against larger schools and make the team with 15 players on its bench look like they were playing the Harlem Globetrotters.
Well, maybe not the Globetrotters, but at least like the Seattle Supersonics trying to win a road game.
The only problem I had with the game was its scheduling.
Both Oak Harbor and Coupeville had to have a lot of games rescheduled this season due to lousy weather conditions, but inserting a non-league game on a Monday, in my opinion, didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
As things turned out, Coupeville had to play a total of four games that week which is a lot — Class 1A school or not!
Here’s a suggestion I’d like to throw out: Why not schedule both the Coupeville boys and girls teams as part of next season’s Santa Slam over the holiday break?
In fact, why not make the annual Santa Slam an all-island tournament and invite teams from South Whidbey and Anacortes as well?
I’m sure somebody will be thinking: “You might as well just give Oak Harbor the championship trophy every year and let the other teams fight it out for second place.”
Well, this season the Anacortes girls are unbeaten at 16-0 and are the number two-ranked Class 2A team in the state, and the South Whidbey girls are in fourth place in the Cascade League and will be a part of the playoff picture.
On the boys side, remember Coupeville came within a whisker of knocking off the Wildcats this year and will have four starting players coming back next season. South Whidbey has a better record than the Wolves do and has beaten them twice, and Anacortes is 9-6 overall playing in the tough Northwest Conference.
More years ago than I care to think about back in Oregon I was president of the Stanfield Booster Club and for several years, the club hosted a highly-competitive holiday tournament that featured Class 3A Umatilla, a pair of Class 1A schools from Echo and Helix and the host team, the Class 2A Tigers.
I’ll tell you what, coach Tony Villanueva’s Umatilla troops could play some basketball and when coach Stan Flershinger’s two sons were on the Helix roster, they were a tough team to beat.
One year Echo was short on players so Monument-Dayville, another Class 1A team, played and they were worthy competitors as well.
Having an all-island tournament makes a lot of sense and I expect you’d have a big turnout of fans.
It’s not that long a drive to Oak Harbor and folks wouldn’t have to worry about the iffy weather conditions trying to navigate up and down I-5, either.
