AS HIGH SCHOOL sports seasons go, we just wrapped up an all-timer on the North Olympic Peninsula.
It began with arguably the most anticipated sporting event in area prep sports history (the PA-Sequim football game) and ended with two teams winning state championships (Sequim softball and Chimacum baseball).
In between, there were a whole lot of unforgettable games, memorable moments and great individual efforts.
As part of the Peninsula Daily News sports desk’s effort to honor the latter, we put together an All-Peninsula sports section each season highlighting the top athletes from the area.
The last of those triennial special sports sections, focusing on the spring sports season, is scheduled to hit news stands Friday.
It will contain the MVPs from each major spring sport our teams compete in — girls and boys track and field, tennis, girls and boys golf, boys soccer, baseball and softball — as well as various All-Peninsula teams and the area’s prep athlete of the year.
There is but one problem with these sections: Team accomplishments tend to fall by the wayside.
Thus, as a precursor to the insert, I’ve decided to hand out a few other awards for this year’s prep sports year.
Without further ado, here they are:
The Schubies
■ Top team performance — Sequim softball.
There’s pretty much no way this could go to anyone else.
Not only did the Wolves win the program’s first state title, they did so without losing a single game all season.
In 28 games, they outscored opponents 389-68, winning by an average of 11.5 runs per game.
The Wolves put up double-digit run totals in all but six of those contests, winning by 10 or more runs 17 times.
Their only one-run games: a 7-6 extra inning victory over rival Port Angeles and a 2-1 win over Ellensburg in the Class 2A state title game.
That’s not just team-of-the-year stuff.
Nine years from now, we might be crowning the 2011 Wolves softball squad as team of the decade.
Honorable mention: Chimacum baseball (1A state champs, 24-2 overall); Neah Bay boys basketball (23-6, 1B state runner-up.)
■ Game of the year — Pick just about any Sequim-Port Angeles game this year and you probably couldn’t go wrong.
Both PA-Sequim boys basketball games, one of which went to double overtime, were absolute classics.
The same goes for the previously mentioned extra-inning softball game between the Wolves and Roughriders in Sequim.
And despite the lopsided score in the football game — a 41-0 Sequim win — it’s hard to ignore an event that packed 4,200 people into Civic Field and inspired KING-TV to cover it via helicopter.
All that being said, I’ve got to go with the Port Angeles-Lindbergh 2A bi-district boys basketball double OT thriller.
The stakes were just about as high as they come — loser-out, winner to state — and the play was absolutely tremendous.
Lindbergh’s James Keum turned in a transcendent performance, hitting all manner of shots for a tournament record 49 points.
Port Angeles’ Hayden McCartney had some shot-making of his own, sinking 7-of-8 field goal attempts, including all three of his 3-point attempts in the two extra sessions.
It even came with a bizarre ending after Ian Ward left his man to block Keum’s final last-gasp 3 attempt.
In the chaos of the ensuing celebration, the Riders were hit with a technical foul after one of their players left the bench prematurely to chest-bump Ward.
At that point, however, it didn’t matter.
Port Angeles was ahead 77-75 with 0.6 seconds to go, and Lindbergh didn’t get another shot off.
■ Most surprising team — Port Angeles football.
Part of me wants to award Chimacum football for closing out the regular season with four straight victories to reach the playoffs after a 1-4 start to the year.
But in reality, there’s really no way I could give this to anyone but the 2010 Port Angeles football team.
For a couple of months in the fall of 2010, the Riders captured the imagination of an entire community.
Playing for their third coach in three seasons, they rebounded from an 0-10 season the year before by winning their first eight games and eventually reaching state for the first time in 18 years.
More impressive than anything else, however, was how that team inspired fans to care about football again.
Friends and acquaintances who had never once talked to me about high school sports began bringing up the topic of Rider football without prompting.
By the time the Sequim game came around, Rider pride had hit a crescendo.
I’ll never forget walking up to Civic Field 25 minutes before game time and seeing both sides of the field absolutely packed.
A year after being the butt of so many jokes, the Riders were the talk of the town.
Honorable mention: Chimacum football; Neah Bay boys basketball’s Cinderella run to the 1B state title game.
■ Top individual performance — Austin Fahrenholtz, Port Angeles diving.
The Rider junior was without peer at the 2A level this year.
He won the state championship with a meet record score of 376.10, and achieved All-American status at the same time.
A week before that, he ripped apart the 2A West Central District meet record by 160 points with a record-setting score of 402.05.
Honorable mention: Jessica Madison, Port Angeles basketball (setting school scoring record at 1,896 points).
■ Best reminder of why I love Peninsula prep sports — I’m going to go a little off the radar here, but there was one specific play this football season that will stick with me for a long time.
It wasn’t a game-winning play, or even something that got more than a couple of inches of ink in the next day’s write up.
But there was just something about it that resonated with me.
When I tried to explain it to my special lady friend a couple of days later, she just nodded her head vacantly and said, “That’s great, Matt.”
Anyway, it came late in the fourth quarter of the North Mason-Port Angeles game at Civic Field in mid-October.
The Bulldogs were desperately trying to get back within striking distance, down 28-15, when quarterback Charlie Becker heaved a pass some 40 yards down field.
Running onto the ball, however, were a pair of Riders, cornerback Skyler Gray and safety Colin Wheeler.
With Gray already under the wobbly throw, he called off Wheeler, snared the ball and turned to run up field.
Almost simultaneously, every Rider on the field turned their head and looked for a Bulldog to pummel. It was as if their minds were all linked together like a horde of agents from “The Matrix.”
Within moments, Gray had a wall of blockers de-cleating Bulldog after Bulldog as he dashed 66 yards down the sideline and into the end zone untouched.
The near capacity Civic Field crowd erupted into a wild celebration while the Rider sideline went delirious with delight.
And there I was, surrounded by elation on all sides at the 30-yard line, desperately trying to jot it all down in my notebook . . . even though I knew I would use none of it.
It was just one play; one seemingly innocuous play in the grand scheme of things. But it just seemed so beautiful.
For someone like me who attended the last game of the infamous 0-10 season the year before — a game seemingly no one, not even the coach, wanted to be at — it signified all that had changed with the Port Angeles football program.
At least that’s how I saw it.
Maybe you just had to be there.
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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.