THE BLUEPRINT FOR any state championship baseball team starts on the mound.
Without at least one dominant pitcher, a team has little chance of securing the four straight wins needed to hoist the first-place trophy.
Consider Chimacum’s state title winning clubs of 2007 and 2011.
Both had a top-shelf hurler to lean on, with the ’07 squad riding the right arm of Arlo Evasick and the ’11 edition relying on Landon Cray’s left.
Of course, both played key roles in their team’s run through the state tournament, with the former picking up three wins and one save in ’07 and the latter two wins and one save in ’11.
The fun part is trying to figure out what would happen if those two aces and their teams met up in a mythical match-up to determine which team was the school’s best.
Cowboys head coach Jim Dunn contemplated that proposition within hours of his team’s title-clinching victory in Yakima last weekend.
Several days later, he still didn’t have an answer.
“I’d toss a coin to see who would win that game,” said Dunn, an assistant to former skipper Loren Bishop when the Cowboys won it all in ’07.
“With Cray and Evasick on the mound, it would probably be a 1-0 [game].”
As the lone prep program on the North Olympic Peninsula with two state titles to its name, Chimacum baseball is the only team in the area qualified to have such a debate.
Trying to figure out which champion is the best takes some serious splitting of hairs.
Bishop coached the ’07 team to the school’s first state crown, then guided the core of this year’s team to a runner-up finish last year before stepping away because of professional obligations.
Going through position by position, he all but declared the two teams a wash.
“If you’re trying to look at one over the other, it’s real difficult,” Bishop said. “Looking at everything, there’s a lot of similarities all the way down the line.
“The one big difference is that the team this year is still pretty damn young.”
Indeed, while seniors Devin Manix (Util.) and Dylan Brown-Bishop (1B) were a key part of the Cowboys’ success this year, much of the star power came from the junior class led by Cray (P/CF), Quinn Eldridge (P/SS) and Austin McConnell (C/P).
In addition to Cray’s dominance on the mound (1.16 ERA, 107 strikeouts), he was also the team’s top hitter with a .575 batting average and school-record nine homers.
Eldridge was a strong No. 2 pitcher with a 7-0 record and 1.45 ERA, while McConnell closed out games on the mound and hit .354 with 21 RBIs.
The ’07 team did have contributing underclassmen in Kyle Doucette (OF, Jr.), Devin Cray (P/SS, Jr.) and Chance Eldridge (3B, So.). But the senior class — led by Evasick (P/SS), Adam McWilliams (C) and Eli Geraldi (OF) — was the driving force of the team.
“I think the big thing you’ve got to say on both ’07 and ‘11 is both of the teams played as a team,” Bishop said. “I think that’s why they were as successful as they were.”
In terms of pitching, the ’11 squad may have had a bit more depth at the top with Cray, Eldridge and McConnell, but the ’07 team was certainly no slouch in that department either.
After all, its top three of Evasick, Devin Cray and Casey Telling combined for four no-hitters, two of which were perfect games.
About the only spot where there is an indisputable advantage is at the plate.
It’s not so much that the ’07 team was mediocre with the bats, it just didn’t have the sort of outrageous power numbers the ’11 squad had, including a school-best 22 home runs.
Bishop, of course, was partial to his own ’07 club.
“For me, I have to say ’07 because it was the first year those kids did it, and the way they did it was about as exciting a way as anybody could have done it,” he said, referencing the team’s seventh-inning comeback in the title game.
“But it would be a fun game to see the two play each other.”
The Chimacum softball team may not have all of the state championship trophies its baseball counterparts have.
But up until two weeks ago, it did have the longest active string of state tournament appearances of any team on the Peninsula.
Chimacum reached state eight years in a row before falling just one win shy at the 1A tri-district softball tourney May 21.
Had the Cowboys (14-6 overall) beat Cedar Park Christian in a loser-out, winner-to-state game, they would have tied the area record for consecutive state appearances held by Clallam Bay football.
The Bruins once made it to the B-8 state football tournament nine years in a row — from 1996-2004.
Now, the area’s longest current streak is shared by the Sequim football team and the Neah Bay girls basketball team.
Each has reached state five years in a row.
Tallying up the K’s
It could be a long time before Quilcene has another athlete like Brandon “Rooster” Bancroft.
That’s not just because of his catchy nickname, either.
Bancroft was a man for all seasons for the Rangers throughout his prep career, and was especially dominant as a senior.
He was named first-team, all-league in football, basketball and baseball this year, earning Sea-Tac MVP honors in the latter after striking out 113 batters in 48 1/3 innings
In basketball, he topped the 1,000-point mark, while in baseball he set the school record in strikeouts.
The future Olympic Community College product punched out 14 in the Rangers’ state playoff loss to Oakville two weeks ago, upping his career total to 346 strikeouts.
Considering the old record was 223, it’s likely to be several years before someone even approaches Rooster’s mark.
First class
Port Angeles looked quite comfortable competing at the 2A level this year.
Aided by a drop from 3A during the offseason as well as the maturation of a strong senior class, the Roughriders submitted one of their most successful athletic years in school history.
All told, the Riders had athletes reach state in 18 of the 20 sports they competed in this school year, with one athlete (diver Levi Fahrenholtz) winning a state title.
Of the eight team sports squads the Riders fielded, six made it to state. And the two that didn’t — girls and boys soccer — each fell just one win short.
There’s no telling what will happen during the next reclassification cycle (talks begin next year for 2012-14).
Here’s guessing the Riders are hoping for the status quo.
Quick hits
■ Pat Durr put on quite the opening act in his first season as Port Angeles boys track and field head coach.
A longtime assistant to former coach Dwayne Johnson, Durr earned Olympic League boys coach of the year honors this spring after guiding the Riders to an Olympic League title.
He had 11 athletes qualify for districts on the way to a sub-district meet victory, with nine eventually making it to state.
■ Port Angeles senior Alison Knowles was invited to play in the Washington/North Idaho All State girls basketball game June 18 at West Valley High School in Spokane.
Knowles was selected to participate in the 15th annual contest after being named a first-team All-Olympic League guard this winter.
She averaged 8.9 points and 5.1 assists per game her senior year and will attend Western Washington University in the fall.
■ Frank Catelli’s first-place finish in the shot put at last week’s 2A meet puts the Sequim Wolves in a class by themselves on the Peninsula.
Not only do they now have seven individual state titles in the past seven years, the Wolves also have the most of any area school since the turn of the millennium with eight.
Sequim had been tied with Clallam Bay at seven prior to last weekend.
The next-closest school is Crescent with five.
■ Port Angeles senior Ian Ward agreed to play basketball for Lower Columbia Community College next winter.
The 6-foot-3 post was selected a second-team All-Olympic League player for the Riders last year, averaging 15.0 points and 7.0 rebounds per game.
He will join a program that has reached the NWAACC championship game two out of the last three seasons under former Port Townsend standout Jim Roffler.
■ Quilcene pitcher Sarah Bacchus was selected as the co-MVP of the Sea-Tac League this spring.
She went 7-2 with 46 strikeouts to help the Rangers reach state for the first time since 2006.
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Matt Schubert is the outdoors and sports columnist for the Peninsula Daily News. His column regularly appears on Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at matt.schubert@peninsuladailynews.com.