Editor's Note – This piece was written just before the beginning of the new year. Since the change in web formats took hold on January 1, it didn't get to see much of the light of day before these site 'improvements' were undertaken, resulting in this space being empty for nearly all of January.

In keeping with the times, it seems appropriate to offer my own observations on 2009's most memorable sports moments---at least the most memorable ones to me.

As a fair portion of the forty-plus items that have appeared in this space this year have pertained to high school sports, it will come as no surprise that my most memorable sports moments came at high school events.

They nearly always provide the most genuine expressions of emotions, usually seen from the sort of up-close vantage point that just isn't attainable at pro or college games, many times by athletes who are experiencing moments of this sort for the first time in their young lives.

I'll not soon forget a Friday night last winter when my favorite girls HS basketball team, Shorecrest, jumped out to an early 20-point lead over perennial power Jackson (not five days after the Timberwolves cleaned the Scots' collective clocks by more than 20 points earlier in the week), then hung on for dear life to notch their first win over Jackson in memory. The sight of several of the team's seniors weeping unashamedly while sitting on the court after the clock finally reached 0:00 still brings a smile, knowing how badly Jackson had thrashed them throughout Kristi Kingma's brilliant career.

A damp spring afternoon at Meadowdale was the site of a pitching performance worthy of remembering. A Shorecrest southpaw, senior James Robbins, was perfect through the first five innings, striking out the side in innings two-through-five. Never before had I written down the letter 'K' in my scorebook twelve straight times. When a parent wondered aloud after the fifth inning just how many hits Robbins had allowed up to that point, it was only a matter of time before the jinx set in – sure enough, the first batter in the sixth hit the quintessential Baltimore chop over the third baseman's head for the first baserunner and hit for the Mavericks.  No matter, twelve straight strike-outs won't be soon forgotten.

I worked several track meets this spring, usually as the Javelin official. After the varsity throwers had finished their competition, the boys and girls competed at the JV level. One contestant stood out among all the other athletes I witnessed this year. Monica Telford was a sophomore of the slightest build, and her glasses gave away her bookishness. Chances are she had never picked up a javelin before this track season, but still she was out there getting her three throws in, competing against herself as much as anyone else. She had heard me mention (almost facetiously) to other throwers that letting loose with a good hearty grunt at the moment of release probably could add a couple feet to anybody's throw. Monica grunted all three times she threw the stick, every week that I was out there.  I don't know if grunting improved her distance any, but the fact that she was out there giving as much, if not more, of what her ability could produce, especially in comparison to all the other athletes I saw all year, epitomized, to me, what high school sports are all about. Would that every athlete had a little bit of Monica in them.

Two football playoff games this fall stand out, both involving Liberty HS. In an early round game against O'Dea, the Patriots trailed by 18 points with about ten minutes to play. But a long drive produced a touchdown. An onside kick was recovered and another TD was scored by Liberty on two quick plays, narrowing the gap to four points. When O'Dea fumbled the ball away returning the next kickoff, Liberty was in position to score the go-ahead touchdown, which they soon did. O'Dea's last ditch attempt to win the game with time running out came up far short, as the forward pass is not a part of their plodding and pedestrian offense, which has no hurry-up in it.

Two weeks later Liberty went up against mighty Lakes Hi from Tacoma in the State Semi-Finals in the T-Dome. Lakes had eleven D-1 recruits on their team and had steamrollered over all their opposition, never even trailing in a game all season. Sure enough Lakes jumped out to an early 14-zip lead, squandering several other scoring chances along the way. The better conditioned and better coached team from Liberty put the ball in the end zone twice in the fourth quarter to tie the game, and when their 42-yd field goal try split the uprights with no time remaining on the clock, players from both teams were overwhelmed with the moment's emotion. Liberty players couldn't believe they had slain the giant, and Lakes' players couldn't grasp that the one time all season they'd trailed in a game would be the end of their season.  The cliché in sports is that losing a game almost always feels worse than winning feels good. In this instance, it was a toss-up as to if the high was higher than the low was low.

But for me the most memorable HS sports moment of 2009 came at the WESCO District Track Meet. I was the on-field awards announcer, situated in the infield some 50 yards away from the finish line. During the home-stretch of the girls 400 meter finals, the two favorites were neck-and-neck as they came to the finish line. In the far outside lane came the longshot, a freshman desperately trying to catch the leaders. Judging from the roar of the crowd, I knew we had a photo-finish for first. It was uncertain who had won. Several minutes later the final results were run down to me from the press box. One girl, wearing a uniform that read 'Snohomish', asked me how she had done. I saw that the only runner in the race from Snohomish had finished first, and I got to tell her that she had won the race. 

First she gasped --- then she burst into tears for a good sixty seconds, surprised, shocked, and excited by the results.

For her pure, authentic, heartfelt, and immediate reaction to learning the results of the race, Leiran Cornish, now a sophomore at Snohomish High, provided my most memorable sports moment of 2009.

I can't wait to see what 2010 holds in store for us.

There's no question about it.

FtheM