One save ... one playoff loss

For the longest time, I was starting to think Putnam County simply was not good enough to compete with any other school in any sport when it came time for the state playoffs.

Just didn't see it happening. Three years into the job at the Palatka Daily News and I started to wonder if Jeremy Criscione's dramatic state cross country championship in 2004 or his gold-medal 3,200-meter race in the 2005 track and field state 2A championship and Mickey Gilyard's memorable high jump win over three-sport start Jermaine Taylor at the same 2A meet in Coral Springs was about as good as it was going to get.

As a matter of fact, it had been three years -- three months before I got to the paper -- that Putnam County had won a team-against-team state tournament game or match. In the spring 2003 -- I was still living in New Jersey, wondering what my next job was going to be -- when Katie Brosky pitched Palatka High to a memorable, extra-inning softball victory over New Port Richey Mitchell High School.

I had seen my share of football state tourney losses, basketball state tourney losses, softball state tourney losses, soccer state tourney losses, volleyball state tourney losses. You get the picture.

No matter what the sport, I was leaving the venue having to write a "we fought hard, we just weren't better tonight"-type story by the end of the night.

In 2005, Crescent City Junior-Senior High School's boys soccer team had put together an unbeaten regular season, then went out and won Putnam County's first district championship in soccer, either boys or girls, with a 4-1 triumph at Pierson Taylor High School, a great moment for anyone's journalism career to be able to say they covered.

Well, I wasn't there that night at Taylor High. I was stuck having to lay out the sports section that Friday night as my boss took seriously ill for over a week, so ill as a matter of fact that he wasn't able to cover the Super Bowl in Jacksonville that Sunday night and I had to step in for him.

But he was able to get better for me to make a trip to Crescent City the following week and watch as the Raiders' season came to an end against Trinity Catholic of Ocala, 3-2, in the first round of the state 2A playoffs.

Now it was Thursday, February 2, 2006, a year later. The Raiders were the No. 1 seed in their District 5-3A tournament the week before and, in a three-team district, automatically was going back to the state tournament. But Crescent City lost the district final on its home field to rival Keystone Heights, 1-0. And with an overall record of 4-7-4 -- yes, you read that right, four wins, seven losses and four ties -- I wasn't expecting much from the Raiders in their state tournament opener and rematch with Trinity Catholic, this time the game on Trinity's field in Ocala.

The ride from Palatka to Ocala is just over an hour, depending on traffic, but Trinity Catholic is a tricky school to find because you have to take one of Ocala's diagonal-based roads and if you miss the turn for the field, you're driving around trying to find your way back. Fortunately, I had Mapquested the site for a state tournament game there the week before when I saw the Interlachen High girls soccer team get hammered, 8-0, by Trinity. I had familiarity.

So a quick stop before heading on the diagonal road at a nearby Zaxby's restaurant. Got the chicken strips. Mmmmm good stuff. However, I wasn't too careful of what I was doing in the quasi-dark of my car and found a big ol' barbecue dipping sauce mess on the passenger seat. That stain took a while to clean off, especially when I finally completely spotted the darned thing the next day in broad daylight.

Got to the field with about 10 minutes to spare, wrote down the lineups for both sides and waited as Trinity's public address guy ran through the lineups, played the National Anthem and then had a moment of prayer before the game. I was prepared for this since this was the routine a week before -- in 45-degree weather then as I nearly yelled out, "Goddamnit, get this game started!" All the pomp, prayer and circumstance did was delay the inevitable mercy-rule victory Trinity scored over Interlachen.

This time, though, I wasn't expecting a beatdown. The teams had played during the regular season to a tie. And though Crescent City had a 4-7-4 record, it was a deceiving record since they were playing some of northeast Florida's better programs.

The coach of the Raiders, John Thomas, is as laid back as any coach you are going to meet. His coaching mindset is pretty simple -- winning a game starts with winning in preparation. Though he would raise his voice from time to time, he knew it was up to the players to execute the game plan he and his assistant coaches had put together beforehand.

The normal makeup of Raiders players is of Hispanic or Mexican descent. They love the sport as much as the sky is blue and the day is long. The leaders of this Crescent City team were goalie Arturo Martinez, defender Cesar Hernandez and forwards Ivan Robles and Carlos Villegas, who would be our paper's two-time Player of the Year in the sport, including this particular year.

As Thomas gathered his players together before the start of the match, I can hear him in a subtle, confident tone tell his players to dictate the tempo of the game and take it at Trinity. And so the Raiders hit the field against Trinity's Celtics ready for anything. Unlike the girls game the previous week that I did at Trinity, it was a much more balmy 66 degrees at kickoff, making for a far more comfortable event to be at.

And just like the first regular-season meeting, the game became a midfield battle with neither side's defense giving in to the other. And with the game scoreless at halftime, I wasn't sounding so positive with my boss about this thing being settled in regulation time.

"I might be here awhile," I told him at the first break.

I was right. The second half was almost an uneventful as the first half. Whatever shot either team had on the other, it never threatened to break the scoreless tie. Any dangerous opportunity that opened up Martinez was stepping in the way for Crescent City, as was goalie Aaron Watkins for Trinity on the other side.

Eighty minutes and still no score. Now came the two 10-minute overtime sessions. And it became apparent from the way this was going, both team's defenses were playing for the right to decide it with the dreaded penalty kicks.

So my third update to my boss was to tell him we were going to penalty kicks to decide this one and I'll update him when it's done. The Raiders had done everything they could from the midfield back to the goalie to frustrate the Celtics, who came in with a 13-6-2 record. On paper, this game should have been a mismatch by all rights in favor of Trinity, but they couldn't get anything in on Martinez, who made 12 saves.

Now as the penalty kicks were being set up, I tried to settle in my mind who would be the better goalkeeper, Martinez or Watkins, who had nine saves. In 1988 as a field hockey writer in New Jersey, I figured Toms River North and goalie Linda Kurtyka would have their way in a one-on-one shootout with Shawnee and a backup goalie who came into the game only for the shootout. Wow, was I wrong that day as Shawnee won the shootout and won the South Jersey Group IV title.

That memory stopped me at that moment. Whoever was going to win was going to need a break ... a save perhaps or a well-kicked ball bouncing off a goal post or crossbar or flying over the crossbar.

After Thomas and Trinity Catholic's coach submitted their lineups, the first kicker up was Hernandez. He calmly kicked his shot into the net to make it 1-0. That brought up Cho Hyun-Jick for Trinity. He laced his shot high and out of the reach of Martinez to tie it at 1-1.

Next up for Crescent City was senior midfielder Patrich Buenaventura. I had gotten to know this fine young man when he won a local contest a couple of years earlier after writing an essay about what it was like to be an American and how good he had it in this country. It was a well-written, well-thought essay written by a young man born in the Phillipines -- on the Fourth of July, no less --- and who also spent time in Texas and Canada before settling down with his very wise mother and Crescent City teacher and stepfather in Crescent City.

Buenaventura lined his shot up and looked at where he was going with his kick. He approached the ball and nailed his shot. Watkins, however, guessed right on where Buenaventura was going as he dove low and to his right, the sound of his hand hitting the soccer ball and deflecting it away still resonnating in my mind even today.

Buenaventura, a diminuitive 5-foot-4, 139-pounder with a heart that could practically match his frame and who played center for the football team the previous fall if you could believe that, put his arms back behind his head as he walked away from the 1-1 tie at that point.

Jason Anderson nailed his kick past Martinez to give Trinity a 2-1 lead. Crescent City's third kicker was Robles, who nailed his kick past Watkins to tie it at 2-2, but John Paglia sent the Celtics ahead with another high shot out of the reach of the 5-foot-7 Martinez. Crescent City's Ernique Benitez stepped up and he delivered a penalty kick goal away from Watkins to tie again at 3-3. Still, Martinez was not stopping anything and when Mike Zacco sent a screamer out of the reach of Martinez and into the net to make it 4-3, the clock was nearing midnight in Crescent City's season.

It was up to Villegas to keep the season going. He surveyed the situation, then drilled a shot past a helpless Watkins to make it 4-all. Villegas had done his job. Now it was up to Martinez to do his.

The last kicker of the regular round of shooters was steady defensive player Austin Ankney. Martinez was still jumping around, getting himself motivated -- and maybe trying to psyche out the last Trinity kicker. Ankney stepped up, delivered the kick and, boom! It went out of the reach again of Martinez to his right. The ball tickled the netting behind.

Trinity Catholic players stormed the field to mob Ankney, then Watkins, who made the one save possible for the Celtics to move on to the next round of the state tournament.

Raider players moped around the Trinity field afterward. The one who hurt the most in the end was the likeable Buenaventura as the tears showed. For that moment, he felt as if he let his team down and was the reason why it lost. No, that was not the case. Crescent City never took control of this game and never put a threat out there in the 100 minutes it did play to even think it had a chance to advance.

The record will always say the Raiders lost the game on penalty kicks, 5-4, and that Buenaventura was the lone shooter who didn't score. But that's not the whole story of this one.

Trinity Catholic just wanted it a little more on this February evening. And Thomas sounded as ever hopeful for the future of the program, rather than despondent at that moment. After all, this was not how John Thomas did business.

"I thought it was a great game right to the end," Thomas would say afterward. "It's a bitter pill, but I've swallowed it before. But something like this is going to add to the kids' lives. It's something they'll never forget in their high school lives. I remember seeing tears in the eyes of our players after the loss (to Trinity) last year, too."

No emotion when he said that. Just realism. Almost anyone who has ever played in the Raider program and for Thomas has the highest respect for the man, and understandably so. Thomas is that example of what happens when you take a kid as a kid and let him develop into a young man.

"I gave it my all, my teammates gave it their all. we came up one goal short," Martinez said afterward. He never pointed blame at any individual. He was a senior who understood that this was life. And sometimes life isn't going to be fair, but you roll with the punches and how you respond from the adversity tells a lot about who you grow up to be.

No one would see, though, that it would take four years -- and a German transfer student named Veit Couturier who would add a little something to an Hispanic- and Mexican-based group of players -- before Crescent City would be back on top again, beating Keystone Heights, 1-0, to capture the District 4-3A tournament.

And Buenaventura? Well all he did was graduate No. 1 in his class at Crescent City that spring, then go off to get his degree in chemical engineering at North Carolina State. I felt horrible for that young man that night in Ocala, but it turns out that setback was only minor in the grand scheme of things in that young man's life.

Thomas is still the program's coach and recently, the Raiders won their third straight district championship. And with a 5-2 win over Gainesville P.K. Yonge in the opening round of the Region 2-2A tournament, the Raider boys became the first program in Putnam County history to win a state tournament game.

As for waiting for a state tournament win by a Putnam County program of any kind, I didn't have long to wait ultimately. In late April, almost three months later, Palatka High's softball team broke the skid at 21 straight games Putnam County sports teams lost in the state tournament, by not only winning a first-round state tournament game with Belleview, but following it up with wins over Groveland South Lake and Zephyrhills to make the state 4A Final Four in Plant City, a dramatic way to break the skid.

Fate was cruel that February 2006 night to Crescent City's young men, especially to an amazingly intelligent young man such as Patrich Buenaventura. The loss served as a life lesson. If this was the worst thing that happened to this team, bigger things were going to happen to them in life.

I'm sure they were better for that, too.

It sure was freezing cold on Super Bowl Sunday

Super Bowl Sunday, January 20, 1985. A day I would get into work after a women's college basketball game in nearby Lakewood, N.J., then turn my attention to watching the San Francisco 49ers strafe Dan Marino and the high-flying Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl XIX.

I kind of expected it, and I wasn't the 49ers fan that I am now. My team back in the day was the Los Angeles Rams with coach John Robinson, quarterback Vince Ferragamo and superstar running back Eric Dickerson. But I had a strong admiration and respect for Bill Walsh and Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott and Roger Craig and that whole team. In a sense, I wanted my Rams to be like the 49ers.

My Sunday was set. First was the women's college basketball game at nearby Georgian Court College that the Lions were playing on a rare Sunday. Since I was the only one working alongside the assistant editor in the department that night, it fell upon me to get to Lakewood, cover the game at the famed Casino building on campus of the all-girls school and head back down Route 9 to the paper that night.

It was a 2 p.m. start, so that allowed for plenty of time. As I turned the engine over of my 1973 Chevrolet Chevelle, I figured all was OK. I knew I needed some gas along the trip, so there would be a gas station I could stop in near the Toms River-Lakewood border along the way.

Oh, the challenges that were about to face me.

The biggest challenge was the weather. It was downright freakin' cold. Temperatures were about 10 degrees and it had snowed a few days earlier, so the snow that remained on the ground with the exception of the road was all ice. But I had to be aware of ice patches on the ride.

The one thing I wasn't aware of was how my 12-year-old car ran. Now I had gotten this car practically for free from my family's next-door neighbor the week I began my two-year stint at Ocean County College. The neighbor, a terrific guy named Mike, was a pastor who moved with his family in from Missouri. He had this brown bomber, as I called it, and he was trying to get rid of it in some way. My family was more than delighted to take it off his hands, and I'll admit, for the two-plus years I had the car, it got me quite a few places in New Jersey and to quite a few assignments.

The one thing I had no understanding was how exactly a car worked. And as an 18-year-old in January 1985, I figured it was all just about putting gas in the car and letting it do its thing.

I soon found out on this nightmarish afternoon it isn't all about that.

The ride itself was pretty simple. Down Hooper Avenue until getting to Shorrock Road and then a turn onto Route 70 west toward Route 9. But by the time I got past Buckelew's Restaurnt near the Route 70-9 intersection, I suddenly realized the car was acting up. It made it to the top of the small hill at the intersection and the car turned off.

Hmmmmm. Let's turn the car back on again, which I was able to do with a couple of cranks. So off on Route 9 it went. But as I slowly got toward the downtown area/main area of Lakewood, the car was starting to act up once again. And as it shut down just as I approached Paul Kimball Hospital, I knew I'd better get to a gas station quickly. This time, though, the car wasn't going anywhere.

It sat right on the shoulder of two-lane highway Route 9 dead to the world, across from Paul Kimball, me figuring out, "Well if something happens to me, they can just wheel a gurney across the street. Ha-ha-ha!"

But when the car isn't on, it's getting cold. And 10 degrees is what it is -- 10 degrees! Add a slight wind chill, and it was near zero degrees. Not very comfortable to say the least.

The next step was to collect enough change to call my folks on a pay phone in the lobby at Kimball and let them know I broke down.

Telling them anything bad summons up thoughts that I've been taken hostage, gagged and forced against my will to tell them if they don't send the money quickly that this might be the last conversation my captors will allow me to have with them.

Well, except my mom. God only knows how strong a woman she is. She told me to hang in and she and my dad would be there. Well, hell, I don't have a running car ... it's not like I've got a whole lot of places to go!

I was forced to wait on that street corner across from the hospital for them -- hands in my pocket doing the best I can to keep from my fingers being completely frost-bitten and my feet doing its best to keep warm despite the circumstances of icy snow on the ground.

I couldn't pick a 75-degree day for this to happen. Nooooooooooooo! It had to be on one of the coldest days of the winter.

About a half hour later, they arrived. And the first thing they had to do was try to get the car started. Nothing. Nothing was going to work. By this point, a couple of kind folks in the neighborhood were good enough to help me and my dad move the car off of Route 9 and onto a side street.

This was about 15 minutes of time and any hope I had of covering coach Bob Sonday's Georgian Court basketball team went out the door. Meanwhile, being out in the cold was taking a toll on my fingers. Of course, I didn't have a pair of gloves on me for this day. Figured I was getting in and out of the car and heading in and out of the building where the game was. What time was I going to be in the cold and elements?

Needless to say, we had to find out where the closest service station was. And thanks to my mom who had some familiarity with this one Sunoco station right across from Lake Carasaljo on Route 9, we were able to give them a phone call from the same hospital lobby. They would be on their way.

The problem was that even though they were right up the road, it didn't mean they were going to be there absolutely right away. And being outside for a long period of time was really making things uncomfortable. Hey, this was my responsibility, I had to take the bullet by being out in the elements instead of staying in a nice, warm car. And each time the car keys would fall to the snow because my frost-bitten fingers couldn't get the darn things into my coat pocket, I can just feel my father's anger building to keep them in there and don't pull them out! Dad wasn't the best at crisis management at that time.

It took less than a half hour for the tow truck to get there and less than 2 minutes for the guy to figure out that a) I didn't have gas in the car, and b) I didn't have any oil in the car either. In the case of the lack of gas, I had been having difficulty understanding the gas gauge and what the total amount of gas there was, so even when I got to the bottom of the tank, it wasn't as apparent. And in the case of the oil, that was just me being stupid for never checking the oil, which now is a religious thing with me.

By the time I signed the papers to have the work done and by the time I heard my folks lecturing me on the privileges of owning a car and taking care of it, I was nearly thawed out as I got back home to Toms River.

I had to borrow mom's car to go to work that night, take whatever notes from the game I was supposed to be at from coach Sonday and then write a short story. Though I wasn't enamored with my assistant boss for the time he was there, he understood what happened. Got whatever I got done and saw my prophecy play out on television that night through the words of Frank Gifford, Joe Theisman and Don Meredith on ABC.

Final score: 49ers 38, Dolphins 16. Knew the Dolphins couldn't hang with the 49ers.

It was a good night. And everything went as planned and I got out at a decent hour. The next afternoon, I picked my car up at that Sunoco station, paid $34 for the service and learned a valuable lesson.

Never ignore your car! Yeah, I still have a problem with that from time to time, but I learned to make sure there's gas in it now. I haven't broken down due to a lack of gas again.

Because no one wants to run out of gas when temperatures are barely above zero.

An emotional state championship run in Tampa

Never in my journalism career was I assured of something quite like this. So assured, in fact, that I prepared months in advance.

In late July 2004, I was sitting in our two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment, me in front of the computer, my girlfriend doing some cleaning in the kitchen. We had been moved in for a month and a lot of things were still new and exciting to us at the time.

While I was filing through different Web sites to look up things, I decided to look up the Florida High School Athletic Association's site to see when state tournaments were taking place. In this particular school year in Florida, things were starting earlier than normal. So I looked up the date for the FHSAA cross country championships.

Well, they were going to be held in the same place they were the year before, Ed Radice Park in Tampa. I was there for the 2003 state championship runs. Then I pinpointed the date and time for the race I was interested in particularly.

It was 5 p.m., Saturday, November 6. Once I had a date, the next step was a bit on the radical side.

"Hey hon," I said. "We're going to spend a weekend in Tampa in November."

Now my dear lady could've looked at me like I had three heads attached to my torso as to why I would plan something just over three months away. Then I told her that more than likely, I was going to be back at Radice Park for the state 2A championship and I decided we should make a weekend of it.

She, like a lot of women I've ever been with, appreciated when plans could be made in advance. I'm not sure how much she totally appreciated making plans this far in advance ... and that it'd be a partial working vacation ... but she was pretty much down with it.

At this point, we had been going out for five months and everything in a new relationship is well, new, exciting and fresh. I'm certain that if we had made these plans, say, four years into the relationship, she may not have wanted to go. Actually, I'm pretty certain she would not have wanted to go.

I guess I have experience with women's moods.

So the next step was calling a hotel that I had stayed in six years earlier when I was living in New Jersey and used in Clearwater Beach while on vacation called the Spyglass. They were great for the time I was there, so I was excited. They gave me a sixth-floor view of the Gulf of Mexico then and they were going to give me the same view again.

All done.

Now why was I so assured that I was going to be in Tampa that weekend to cover the FHSAA cross country championships? Because our main representative in Putnam County was Interlachen High School senior Jeremy Criscione, a three-time All-Putnam County run champion who was also the defending district champion and finished sixth in the 2003 state 2A championship.

And from time to time in the summer, I'd find out how he was training for the upcoming season. He was pretty darned committed to his work, which made me believe that, barring injury, he was making a return trip to the state 2A championship.

Beside, even if he didn't, she and I had a weekend getaway. Remember: New, exciting and fresh.

Cut to a week and a half later. It is August 9, 2004, a Monday afternoon milling around the apartment. My boss calls me up with sobering news: Dwayne Cox, a longtime coach at Interlachen High, had passed away.

Cox had been a football and softball coach at Interlachen High in the 1990s, but for the last 10 years, he had been coach of the IHS cross country teams. And his positive attitude was what sold Criscione to come out for running as a lanky 14-year-old freshman. Now as a senior, his leader -- his coach -- was gone.

This could have changed everything for the first week of November in a negative way. But I had a feeling young Jeremy was going to use this as a motivator.

Three days later, Cox's service was held at a church in downtown Palatka, the town he had adopted as his home after college. Everyone who knew Dwayne Cox was there from fellow coaches and teachers to current and past pupils and student-athletes to friends and family. The church was packed. I can still remember Charlie Overturf from the funeral home and who was handling the arrangements telling me at the church that the service had not started yet and pointed me upstairs in this large house of prayer.

For the next hour, friends and peers spoke glowingly about a man I barely knew, but knew enough to be a friend to those who came around him and a positive influence. By the end of that hour, I felt like I knew this man all my life. Before he had passed, I had seen him with his lovely wife Sylvia outside the newly built Quizno's Subs as they were coming in and I was going out in late June. And before that, I had covered him with cross country and junior varsity softball.

He could be cantankerous and we butted heads when it came to what he called in to the newspaper when it came to junior varsity softball results -- JV softball for goodness sake! But I understood his point of view. He wanted to make sure that everyone that played for him knew he had their best interest.

After this wonderful service, I came down to the floor level to see people I knew there. I saw Criscione and a good amount of his cross country teammates and they looked somewhere between glum and non-committal to their emotions. But he assured me he was all right. Then I paid my respects to Sylvia and daughter Chrissie. I didn't really know Chrissie that well, but I knew Mrs. Cox somewhat.

She was still sad and had gone through her crying spells throughout the service, but was still appreciative of the people who were coming up to her wishing her well and asking if there was anything they could do to help.

It was my turn and she knew me and hugged me. Then I did something I never had planned on doing -- I moved my mouth to her ear and said this to her.

"Your husband's last great sports accomplishment in coaching is coming November 6."

She smiled, but had no idea what I was talking about. Then I told her that was the date of the state cross country championship.

That was August 12. Now cut to November 6.

Criscione had gone through the season unscathed, winning every race he competed in, including a dominating fourth straight county championship meet at West Putnam Recreation Center. On a slippery course at a park in Bronson, he repeated his district championship run, then outrun a young man named Scott Macklay of Lakeland Kathleen High by six seconds to win the Region 2-2A championship at Lecanto High School.

Remember that trip to Tampa made in July? Well now we were going to Tampa on a pleasure and business trip.

So the morning of the 6th, the girlfriend and I woke up at around 8:30. We had planned to be gone for a couple of days so we did light packing. By about 10, we were on the road, stopping off in Ocala along the way to eat at Cracker Barrel, her favorite restaurant to eat at while on the road.

Somewhere along the ride down to the Tampa Bay area, a car or truck hit a small rock and it pelted my windshield. It caused a small crack that I would ultimately have to fix, gladly for free thanks to Florida insurance laws.

Along the ride, though, I had tried to reach the hotel we were going to stay at. So did my lovely lady. Nothing. The phone just kept ringing and ringing and ringing.

By about 2 p.m., we had arrived in Clearwater Beach and proceeded to the hotel to find out why we didn't get an answer.

We saw the boarded-up hotel. This was the year of the hurricane in Florida. It started with the devastation Charley had done to southwestern Florida in August. That was followed by Frances and Jeanne in September. And now, she and I were walking into the hallway of the Days Inn next door that was open, the hotel I stayed at in November and December 1995 when I made my first trip to Florida in 26 years.

I asked what happened to the hotel next door and they said the hurricanes really did damage to it and that ruined the tourist season at that time.

Greaaaaaaaaat! Now it's 2:30 p.m., we're just two and a half hours from the race in Tampa and we have nowhere to stay. Thankfully, the Days Inn was nice enough to give us a room for the same rate that I would have gotten at the Spyglass. Our room overlooked the gulf like the other hotel's room was supposed to, so we were pleased.

After finally settling in, we didn't have a lot of time to relax. It was turning around and heading back the other way to the mainland and to the race. We jumped on State Road-60 over the causeway, back to I-275 and off at the Dale Mabry exit where we immediately stopped at Wal-mart to pick up some food and drink for the ride.

We were making good time heading to the park when we made the turn to the street leading into the park. Traffic slowed to an absolute crawl heading in. It was about 4:45 p.m. when we slipped into the park. As I can see the course on my left and time was wasting away, my significant other had an idea.

"Get out of the car," she demanded. "I'll park it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah! Go!!"

I grabbed what I needed to grab and headed to the building where journalists and photographers were to upload their works for their publications. At the headquarters, I ask for my credentials, telling the man behind the desk specifically, "It's Blumenthal. Starts with a 'B.' Palatka Daily News." I had made the online arrangements earlier in the week to get the credentials prepared for me when I got there.

He couldn't find them. And now I was in a hurry to get to the start of the race without an official FHSAA press pass. Great! Just what I need.

So now I had to fill out paperwork and the credential itself before the race. Thankfully, the race time had been pushed back a few minutes, so by the time I got everything settled and found my way back to the course, the runners were set to go. They were starting from a distance near where I was and as the go-ahead to start was made, they were being told to go back to the start.

Seems this was the second false start of the race and that I missed the first one. Usually I try to make contact with someone who I knew and was involved with the runners before the race, but traffic and this credentials snafu mucked everything up.

On the third attempt, all went without a hitch. I knew to look for Criscione as well as Macklay. There would also be Miami Gulliver Prep's Bryan Sharkey and Miami Belen Jesuit's Eduardo Arguello to watch out for, too. But the young man to beat was Tampa Jesuit's Andrew Biladeau, the defending champion and an all-around nice young man who would eventually go on to a nice running career at the University of Virginia.

Criscione's plan of attack in this race was to be more conservative, not be a rabbit and then slow down during the race, which was what happened in 2003. And as the race began, he got out with the front pack, but he didn't get out to a lead. He held back.

As I finally had everything settled, I finally spotted his coach, Ed Mingle, the man who had the daunting task to follow up Cox as coach that season. There's a reason why I call the man "Easy Eddie." He just lets a lot roll off him and he takes things in stride, even a big race like this. But he knew this was a huge race and things seemed much different now.

What a way to finish up your first year as the program's coach ... at the state 2A meet.

In the crowd, I spotted Brandi Newman, the Putnam County girls champion from Interlachen, as well as a couple of teammates. Also there for support was Enoch Nadler, a freshman at the University of Florida who had been not just a rival for Criscione for three years, but was also one of his closest friends and training buddies. And IHS athletic director Doug Feltner, who was close friends with Cox, was there as well.

Now I had familiarity and I was just off the course to see what was happening in front of me. I knew the girlfriend would do a good job in finding a parking spot.

In the second mile of the race, Criscione had passed up Macklay, who was not quite used to the pace of this pack compared to the week before. He picked off both Sharkey and Arguello.

Before you knew it on this beautiful, 71-degree night, it was just him and his rival for what would be a two-mile tussle. They both stayed in stride with one another throughout. But once they went into the artificially-lit woods area, no one really knew what was happening. All of us there to either root for Criscione or to cover him were just having faith in him that he was handling this race just fine.

Moments later at the back of the loop, I can see the two runners and I can hear the excitement from the people who had made it to the race from western Putnam County: Criscione was leading going into the final 400 meters. Five years later, Criscione would tell me that he had heard someone say, "Do it for Coach Cox!" and that was the motivation he needed to take it to another level.

After a close race with the defending state 2A champion, Criscione was now dictating how this final scene was going to play out. Above the finish line, I can see the time ticking away.

14:40. 14:41. 14:42. 14:43.

And he was nearing the finish line. Yes, the finish line! Criscione had made it a regular thing to run in the mid-to-upper 15-minute range, but his fastest time of the year was 15:24 at the region meet. Now he was on line to obliterate that time on this fast, flat course.

I readied myself near the finish line as he crossed it. But with the darkness in the backdrop and my camera not handling the speed as well as I'd like it to, I missed the winning shot as he came across the finish line in first place in 15 minutes and two seconds.

Yes, 15:02, a new 3.1-mile (5K) record for the state meet. The excitement was apparent.

The raw emotion was what I did not expect. I turned around and there were his friends happy. And there was Brandi Newman already balling her eyes out. She truly understood what this win meant. She, like Criscione, was a diehard runner who had honed her skills under Cox's tutelage.

This wasn't just Jeremy Criscione's win. This was Brandi Newman's win, too.

And this was Dwayne Cox's win.

His last win, even if he wasn't there to enjoy the rewards in person.

It would not be another 30 to 45 minutes before I would be able to speak to the champion. He had all the commitments with the state sports network, Sunshine Sports, and he was doing numerous interviews with other outlets, including one with the meet director as he fed him questions and Criscione, exhausted, did his best to answer them.

Meanwhile, Biladeau was a gracious runnerup. He knew he didn't lose the race. He gave credit to the new champion. All hail the new champion.

I finally spotted my girlfriend. She was smiling. And suddenly it hit me. All the emotion of this moment, all the drama that led to this particular night.

This meant everything to the Criscione family. But it meant more to those who knew Dwayne Cox, that positive influence in a young 14-year-old's life in 2001. He had a state champion in spirit.

I finally had the chance to talk to Criscione moments after he had that gold medal placed around his neck by Mingle, who realized the moment was bigger than he could have ever imagined. I nearly lost it asking that first question and how much that victory meant to him, his friends, his IHS teammates and then to the memory of Coach Cox.

How to this day he answered my questions with a straight face, I still am amazed by it. Here's a young man who just won the biggest race of his life and yet, he kept everything in the proper perspective without breaking down, maintaining a straight-line mentality on the answers that whole time.

No emotion to talk about from the winner. I'm thinking, "What a bummer!" But then I realized everything around him provided the backdrop to the ultimate story. And if he was in the vacuum away from all that emotion, away from the storylines that were developed that whole season -- starting with Dwayne Cox's death in August -- it may have been better than being affected by it.

I had my story notes, I had my official results and eventually had a great weekend in Clearwater Beach with my significant other, going out after the race to Pete And Shorty's in Clearwater, then to the IHOP the next morning on Clearwater Beach.

When I had a chance to finally have distance from that magical night, this was the greatest high school sports moment I had ever covered ... bigger than Lacey's 1994 NJSIAA Group III field hockey championship upset of three-time champion West Essex, bigger than that night in 1985 when Rich Siegler outswam Terence Donnelly in the final 100 meters of the 400-yard freestyle to give Toms River East an unlikely Shore Conference Tournament title over Toms River South, bigger than that June morning in 1996 when Robin Pepper stepped in for an injured Kristy Tice and delivered Central Regional -- and Ocean County -- its first state softball title.

It was both amazing and emotional. Nothing, I've said, can top that night in my career on a prep sports level.

It was proven in 2005 when after 21 years in this business, I won my first two sports writing awards, a second-place finish at the Florida Sports Writers Association for best story in my division, and a first-place finish with the Florida Press Club for best story in my division. Those plaques -- like the ones I'd win in the future -- are well kept in my closet still to this day.

Five years later, we did a ranking of the 20 greatest prep sports moments of the 2000 decade in Putnam County history and that state championship was No. 1. Rightfully so, too. And those emotions sparked a phone call for me when I came into work that Monday afternoon after the story had been in the paper on Saturday, January 2, 2010.

It was Sylvia Cox, who I had not talked to in six years. She did not want to go to the state meet that night in Tampa because the emotions were too powerful for her. But now she was telling me that I had brought those emotions back to the forefront after reading my story. And it brought a tear to my eye listening to her tell me about those times with her husband and with Jeremy and with the team. She was having a difficult time holding back her sobs.

It was a pretty intense phone call. I didn't expect it. And she updated me on what had happened in her life and she finally admitted to me things that had happened surrounding that time period that I had only heard rumors. It was a great 20-minute conversation.

And so as Jeremy Criscione, who went on to be a four-time national qualifier for the NCAA Championships in his career at the University of Florida and has since married and waits on the arrival of he and his wife's first child, and chases down a dream to be an Olympic marathon runner, I am reminded of the night he gave me and all those in attendance at that park in Tampa a moment that we will never forget.

I hope he makes it to the Olympic team one day. I want to get a chance to say I covered an Olympic runner. I already can say I've covered an Olympic soccer player (Christie Pearce Rampone) in my life. Maybe I might even cover him in person in the Olympics someday.

Either way, though, it'd be hard to top that November night in 2004. How do you top the storylines and the drama surrounding a state championship like that one?

Especially when you expected something amazing to happen months in advance.

The day the Jaguars made the Colts look human

The 2006 Jacksonville Jaguars season was one of transition.

Yet, with new faces taking over in the lineup and making an impact, the Jaguars were still able to keep it together in Jack Del Rio's fourth season as coach and be 7-5, still remotely in the playoff hunt with four games left in the season.

But the schedule wasn't looking favorably for the Jaguars. The last three games were against the Tennessee Titans, New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs and at 5-7, the Titans were the weakest team of the bunch.

And then there was the game on this Sunday, December 10, 2006 against the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts were 10-2 and looking unstoppable toward yet another AFC South championship behind Peyton Manning's right arm and top receivers Marvin Harrison, Ricky Proehl and Reggie Wayne.

A year before, the Jaguars gave the 12-0 Colts everything they could handle on this same Alltel Stadium field before falling to them, 26-18, in a game played just a week before coach Tony Dungy's son sadly took his own life.

That day, all the buzz was in the Colts' locker room afterward. And as Dungy was being asked questions about the possibility of going unbeaten and who he was going to play and not play and how much those players would play the rest of the season, he trying to escape it in a gentlemanly fashion.

In the middle of all that, I asked him, "How do you deal with all this? How do you stay so calm?" throwing that question out there as a little bit of a diversion toward the monotony of being asked the same question over and over and over and over again in different forms by a media that didn't get it.

The composed Dungy was more than glad to answer my question, telling me and others that he never always had this kind of patience and that he was a bit of a hothead in high school. He actually said "his buddies would be shocked if they saw him now."

It helped to write that column about him the Tuesday after the win and sadly a week before his son died. My question -- and Dungy's answers -- were part of the lead Associated Press writer Jim Litke used when writing his column on Dungy after his personal tragedy. You can Google it. It's still there!

But that was soooooooooooooooo 2005.

This was a new season and the Colts had the same expectations of a great fall and maybe finally getting to a Super Bowl. They weren't unbeaten this time around, but 10-2 was still pretty darned gaudy.

Still, one thing the Colts were lacking at this point was a defensive leader. The guy whow was supposed to lead -- strong safety Bob Sanders -- was out with a knee injury. It was during that season Dungy nicknamed Sanders "The Eraser" because he had a tendancy to "erase" the mistakes the defense made.

On this afternoon, we would soon find out why Dungy's nickname for Sanders was oh, so correct.

The one thing I can absolutely say about Colts fans is they travel very, very well. In my nine years of covering Jaguars football games, I've seen a lot of blue, white and horseshoes as I got out of my car, walked through the parking lot and headed to the stadium. And this beautiful December afternoon in the low 70s was no different.

In retrospect, I believe only Steelers fans travel as well if not better than Colts fans.

Anyway, I got my normal grouping of papers and the day's program getting me prepared for this one, went downstairs to have lunch and saw some colleagues, including my good friend John, who did call-ins for the radio network he was working for at the time. John is good people, a die-hard Florida State guy who lives in Tallahassee and who I truly trust and enjoy his friendship.

So John and I are bantering around outcomes for this afternoon's game. I'm pretty sure neither one of us gave the Jaguars a chance to win this one, and I'm pretty sure his margin of victory was much higher than mine.

Unlike the year before, though, I thought this Colts team didn't look like Super Bowl material. The San Diego Chargers of coach Marty Schottenheimer were in my mind the favorites to go to Miami for that year's game. Phillip Rivers had already developed into a top-of-the-line QB, LaDanian Tomlinson was on his way to an MVP season and the Chargers defense, led by Shawne Merriman, was playing lights out.

Still, you'd thought the Colts should have little problem with the Jaguars.

Then the game began. The Jaguars had the ball on their opening possession, starting at their own 6. Just move the ball a little bit and get out of trouble back there, after all the last thing you want to do is give Peyton Manning good field position to start the game.

Del Rio, dressed in a blue suit and tie for the second time in his career (a trend for the time that was set by then-49ers coach Mike Nolan as a tribute to his father Dick, also a former 49ers coach who dressed in a suit and tie), sent the play in with quarterback David Garrard, who had taken over as the starter when Byron Leftwich was injured once again.

The play Del Rio called for Garrard to run was called "56 blast." On that play, the Jaguars line blocks defenders out to the right side. From there, Garrard hands the ball off to a running back and that back runs into the hole the line creates.

To this day, it is the single greatest running play I've ever witnessed in person.

Garrard handed off to veteran running back Fred Taylor. Taylor saw the hole opened up for him and zipped through it. Before you knew it, Taylor was streaking down the Jaguars sideline heading for a touchdown. As I said in my story, Taylor "could have been equipped with 18 wheels, a license plate and hauling furniture with him when he zipped through the vacancy."

Taylor outraced every Colts defender with the exception of defensive back Jason David, who got Taylor at the Colts 18. Taylor joked about it and said afterward, "It may be the first time in my career that I'll admit to getting caught."

The 76-yard run was the opening chapter to a long book Colts defenders did not want to read on this day. On the very next play, Taylor went out and rookie Maurice Jones-Drew from UCLA came in. He took Garrard's handoff, busted through a hole in the center of the line and ran untouched the last 18 yards for the score.

Two plays, 94 yards. But was this a fluke? Did the Colts offense want the ball back that badly?

Well maybe not that badly, but the Colts did get an Adam Vinatieri field goal on their next drive and took a 10-7 lead when Dominic Rhodes scored on a 1-yard plunge midway through the second quarter.

Looked like the Colts were gaining control of this game. It was only a matter of time.

But the Jaguars were able to run the ball against what was the worst defense against the rush, averaging 160 yards a game on the ground against it. Turns out the Jaguars were just warming up.

The offensive line of Khalil Barnes, Vince Manuwai, Brad Meester, Chris Naeole, Maurice Williams and tight end and veteran Kyle Brady were having a field day against this sieve-like Colts front.

Taylor scored on a 21-yard run three minutes after the Colts took the lead. Then after a three-and-out, the Jaguars busted it open when Jones-Drew dashed 48 yards for a score to make it 21-10. And just before the half, they got into field goal range and Josh Scobee did the rest with a 48-yarder before halftime to make it 24-10.

I looked at John down the way and he looked back at me. This wasn't really happening, was it? I understood the Colts were missing Sanders, but I couldn't imagine the Colts' defense being this baaaaaaad.

"They look defeated," John said of the Colts.

John was absolutely right. Never have I seen a Peyton Manning-led, Tony Dungy-coached Colts team just look beaten. The defense that Dungy prided himself on had no answers in stopping the dynamic duo of Taylor and Jones-Drew. The Jaguars would run 56 plays from scrimmage that day -- and Garrard only had to throw the ball 14 times.

And all this was happening in front of my own eyes from seat No. 87 in the Jaguars' press box. That's when I said to John the magical words that I thought would turn out to be appropriate sometime during the playoffs.

"No way is this team going to the Super Bowl, not the way that defense looks."

It was only going to get worse in the second half for Indy. Jones-Drew took the kickoff and dashed back 93 yards for a touchdown to make it 31-10. The fans who were there to root the Jaguars on were in an absolute frenzy at this point.

The big, bad Colts were beind dropped like a bad habit. Garrard continued to run the ball-control offense behind Jones-Drew and Taylor and it was working to near-perfection.

Interestingly, the Jaguars barely won the time of possession battle (31:37-28:23), but they were coming away with scores. Scobee added a pair of field goals and Alvin Pearman added a fourth-quarter touchdown run to put the final touches on a 44-17 rout.

Yep, none of us saw this one coming. Taylor rushed for 131 yards on nine carries. Pearman had 71 yards rushing in backup duty.

And Jones-Drew put his name on the NFL map for years to come in this one, rushing for 166 yards on 15 carries, while collecting 15 yards on pass catches and 122 yards in returns. His 303 yards broke Jimmy Smith's all-purpose yards mark of 291 he set in a 2000 game against the future Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens.

Jones-Drew and Taylor became the first running back pairing to each rush for 100 yards in the same game since Buffalo's Thurman Thomas and Kenneth Davis did so against Atlanta in 1992, three years before the Jaguars came into play. And the 375 yards rushing by the Jaguars were the most for a game since Cincinnati had put 407 up against Denver in 2000.

Needless to say, all was jovial in the press conference afterward. I asked Jones-Drew if he felt as if he were "in the zone" that day.

"It really wasn't a zone," he said. "I didn't have to do much. If you watch the tape, the holes to run through were pretty big. You have to give credit to the offensive line. They did a great job."

And it cemented my point about the Colts' defense. No defense that bad deserved to play in the Super Bowl.

You'd think momentum would be great for the Jaguars to get after that postseason berth with a huge win, right? Think again. As would be a trend under Del Rio with the exception of the 2007 season, the Jaguars folded like a house of cards in December, losing their last three games and watching the playoffs from home.

As for the Colts -- the team I said looked nothing like a Super Bowl hopeful -- all they did was get Sanders back, beat the Chiefs and Ravens, then stop the Patriots in the AFC Championship game. Two weeks later, they beat the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI in Miami.

Anytime you beat a Peyton Manning-quarterbacked Colts team is special. The Jaguars have done it through the years in dramatic fashion.

But on this particuar December afternoon in 2006, they did it in surprisingly easy fashion.

During a season of transition when it was least expected, no less.

Starting a story over again ... on Christmas Day

Christmas Day, 1988. A Sunday. A rare holiday off from work at the Ocean County Observer.

Back in the day, there was no Christmas Day newspaper, so that meant I didn't have to work that Saturday like I normally did. However, to compensate for not working and producing a Sunday paper, management had us instead work on the Friday night before.

We had no Saturday paper at that time, so Fridays were free days for us. Well, we at least had something to cover at the Observer on that December 23, 1988. It was called the WOBM Christmas Classic at Ocean County College. And my game was Pinelands Regional against Toms River North. North was pretty decent. Pinelands was not so good. The final score was 77-23.

As a matter of fact, it was the first round of the event and the difference between the very good teams and the not-so-good teams was pretty radical in all the games that day. It prompted me to write the original lead of my story -- "The WOBM in the WOBM Christmas Classic took on new meaning last night ... We Only Book Mismatches."

Funny, I struck that lead out. Didn't think tournament director Kevin Williams would be all that hot with that lead or the story for that matter. But working that rare Friday and getting a newspaper out was quite a bit different. No work on Saturday, and that meant the last-minute shopping was not going to be interrupted. All was fine that day.

Well, all except one thing. I had put off doing the Ocean's Own feature for that week. I figured I'd get to it in the office Saturday night. Well for some reason, the procrastinator in me just didn't feel like going into work. Beside, the notes in our old One-System computers were pretty secure as long as the printer worked.

Cut to 6 a.m. Christmas Day. I got out of bed, got dressed on a cold morning and headed to the office, the 1977 Dodge Aspen getting me there to the Observer parking lot. From there, it was up the stairs and to the second floor. It was dark and quiet. Much to my liking, the only light was the sun starting to peak through the windows next to where the news reporters normally worked.

I turned on the one light at the sports desk. That was enough for me.

As I turned on my computer, I planned out how I wanted to get through the hour or two I was going to be there, then turn around, head back home and prepare for my Sunday ritual of "American Top 40" on WPLJ-FM, which started at 9 a.m. Sundays and was hosted by Shadoe Stevens, who had taken over the show from Casey Kasem that August. I knew the debuts I was going to hear that morning, starting with the Art of Noise and Tom Jones' version of "Kiss," which debuted at No. 40.

He had already been host of the show for four months and yet, Shadoe Stevens was already irritating my ears. But that's getting off on a tangent.

The computer was on and all I needed to do was look for my notes that read "oceansownnotes goodale." This Monday's story was on standout Jackson Memorial High School wrestler Scott Goodale, who I knew from playing Little League ball and knowing his parents Jim and Karen from their time at Holbrook Little League. Little League was my beat from 1984-99 at the Observer and yes, I pretty much knew just about everyone there.

So I go into whatever queue these old One-Systems had my notes. And I thought maybe I put my notes in a different spot. No notes. Nothing.

It's 7:15 a.m. I really don't want to be at work for more than another hour. I'm there for one purpose -- get this damned feature done! After all, this is the highlight locally of our Monday paper, the weekly feature on high school students at the 15 Ocean County high schools, the junior college (Ocean County College) and four-year university (all-girl Georgian Court) as well as the local everyday people who excelled in athletics.

By this time, I had taken a good amount of Ocean's Own features from Chris Christopher when Chris couldn't do them, and back in that day, it was an honor to do those stories.

And I really was looking forward to banging out this feature story on young Scott Goodale, a junior who was in the beginning of carving out his legacy as a state-caliber wrestler for coach Al Aires at JMHS, then going on to a fabulous college career.

But try writing the story without quotes. I was faced with that daunting task. Maybe I had printed the notes out from my interview with Scott and placed them somewhere in a folder that I normally work with. I tore open the folders I had. Nothing. I'd have recognized the notes on the sheets we used to print out that literally looked like print-out paper from some Stock Market report, the ones with the perforated lines and the holes on the side that you easily tore off.

Oh, those were the days.

Maybe I had misplaced them under some papers near the boss' work station. Nope. I had torn through all the folders and the work stations. Nothing. I had my notes from talking with coach Aires stored, but not from my interview with his wrestler.

It's 7:45 now and AT40 is starting at 9. So I had to bide the little time I had.

First, I grabbed whatever information I had on young Scott -- the factual stuff about his 1986-87 and '87-88 seasons and whatever he opened his 1988-89 season doing. And then I combed through other sports to get whatever he did there.

As I've always said, as long as the factual information is documented and found, half the battle is done. The only part of the job I had left was to re-interview him.

And I was very lucky to have Scott Goodale as my feature story for the week for I knew Jim and I knew Karen. It was just after 8 a.m. Kids are normally sleeping at this hour of the morning, especially on a Sunday ... strike that, Christmas Day Sunday!

I picked up the phone and called the Goodale household. I got Karen. I do believe if it were anyone else, I may have been slightly lectured on calling early. Once I explained what happened -- and sadly with the old One-System computers, that was occasionally -- Karen was understanding. It also didn't hurt that Scott was awake.

"Hi, Scott. It's Mark. How'd you like to do the interview again?" was what I said.

Once he understood what happened, then we went to work again. It was about 15 minutes and I got what I wanted out of him ... again. Those notes got printed up quickly and by 8:45 a.m., the final version was ready to be edited by Dave, my assistant boss, and placed on our sports front that night for Monday's edition.

Closed out the computer, the one light I had on and by the time I got into my car and headed back home, it was bright sunshine. Not a car on the road but mine at that hour and that made it easier to speed down Hooper Avenue at nearly 55 mph to get back, turn on the radio and hear the AT40 intro and that Art of Noise/Tom Jones debut of "Kiss" at No. 40. As a matter of fact, that was a big week for debuts -- Tone Loc's "Wild Thing" debuted at No. 37, Sheena Easton's "The Lover In Me" came in at No. 34 and the very first Top 40 hit for a dancer-turned-singer named Paula Abdul called "Straight Up" came in at No. 35.

I got home in time. I didn't have to see the office again until Monday.

Scott Goodale is now Rutgers University's head wrestling coach. It's been about two or three years since I last saw Scott in the late 2000s. He has a family of his own and he's doing well.

I'm thankful to have had Scott Goodale as Ocean's Own that Christmas weekend.

Actually, I was thankful I had Karen and Jim Goodale as Scott's parents. Most parents would've frowned on that Christmas morning 8 a.m. phone call. But they were very supportive of all the sporting activities their kids did.

It also reminded me to never forget to properly save notes or print them out and keep them in a safe place so I don't have to go through that Christmas Day drama again.

On this Christmas day, I am thankful to remember all the parents who allowed me the time to make their children stars, no matter how big they were, and especially the parents who allowed me to talk to their kids at odd hours like 8 a.m.

I don't make it a habit now. Heck, I'm fast asleep at 8 a.m. normally. But every now and then, there's a late-night phone call to someone.

I'm glad you parents are understanding.

Lacey's "Miracle of Route 31"

No way in a million years did I think the Lacey High School field hockey team had a chance of beating the almighty program from West Essex High School.

They didn't beat them the year before in the NJSIAA Group III championship game with a more talented group of Lions. And two years before that, a very talented group of young ladies from Toms River South took a younger West Essex team into overtime before West Essex scored to win that final, 2-1.

Just too talented these girls from Wessex were to fail. The Knights had arguably the best player in the state in 69-goal scorer Michelle Vizzuso. She had one of the three goals in the 3-0 win over Lacey the year before and her 69 goals were a state record for one year.

This championship -- same two teams, same Trenton State College field -- should have been the same outcome, right? Ahh, but that's why a famous sports personality once said, "That's why they play the games."

And that's why Sunday, November 20, 1994, was as different a day as any in my career.

The 1993 Lacey team -- powered by a group of senior standout athletes such as forwards Melissa Schreiner, Meghan Kelly and Dana Jurczyk and All-State first-team defender Corey Musselman -- was one of the best units I had ever seen play. The Lions played an amazing Shore Conference Tournament final against powerful Shore Regional, but could not push the ball into the net and settled for a scoreless tie in the end.

The Lions were 22-0-3 and had run through the state tournament to win the South Jersey Group III title and the Group III semifinals, but in front of over a thousand people against a fellow unbeaten in West Essex, they simply did not match up that day.

And so all season long, I made the mistake of measuring the 1994 version of the Lions up with the '93 talent-laden team. No matter how good this group of Lions were, they were not going to be that fantastic '93 team. I figured they had a shot at winning South Jersey Group III again, but against the better teams outside of South Jersey, they just weren't going to hold their own.

Lacey had lost to Toms River North in overtime in the '94 SCT final at Red Bank Regional High School and North was very, very good that year, making it to the NJSIAA South Jersey Group IV final after stunning unbeaten Eastern Regional in the SJ IV semifinal round.

But as the state tournament started, my main focus was on what North was going to do in the state tournament. And while North lost its SJ IV title game to pesky nemesis Shawnee, Lacey was running through to the SJ III final to win its second straight title.

This meant a November 15, 1994 date with an unbeaten Notre Dame of Lawrenceville club at a school I had never been to before -- Northern Burlington High School in the little town of Columbus. You literally had to weave your way around country roads to get to this school, which seriously was out in the middle of cornfields and farms.

Central Jersey Group III champ Notre Dame was a tough team and played up to it unbeaten record. But Lacey, which was a modest 16-2-3, got a first-half penalty corner after penetrating inside Notre Dame's defensive box and was fouled. And that was trouble.

Kelly Sauers, whose corner passes were dead-on from the baseline of the box, sent a perfect pass out to senior Jenn Melnyk and Melnyk delivered a blast from the top of the circle past the goalkeeper and into the net.

And the Lacey defense, led by seniors Megan Glancy, Michelle Bacheson and Pam Jacobsen and junior goalie Sara Leta, held the Irish down the rest of the way to record the stunning 1-0 victory that left them elated and Notre Dame's longtime coach with a scowl on her face because of Lacey's physicality on defense that she thought the officials let go instead of calling violations.

Another foe bites the dust. Now the biggest foe was awaiting the Lions in West Essex, who had three straight Group III titles to their credit and had rolled up a national record 86-game unbeaten streak. The last loss the Knights had suffered was to Northern Highlands, another terrific program, in the Group III semifinals on November 13, 1990.

In other words, none of the current group of Knights had lost a game in their careers!

They were on a mission at this point to finish out the amazing careers of the seniors -- including Vizzuso -- with one last win. Again, I was convinced West Essex was strictly there for business purposes and the Knights weren't going to mess around. If they plowed through one of the better teams I had ever covered the year before, 3-0, and most of that team was back this year with an 84-0-2 mark since the start of the '91 season, how bad could this championship be?

For the four off-days Lacey did not play, I simply doubted the team's chances. But in that time, Mike Shern, Lacey's venerable coach of 11 seasons, made me believe this team was different and that everyone had learned from its mistakes the year before.

I still wasn't believing this. Then I had to write the preview story for the Sunday edition of the Observer. It was something out of the realm of "find every song you have mentioning the word 'miracle' in it and play them all. That's what Lacey may need to beat the country's No. 1 team today."

This, apparently, didn't sit well with the Lacey players and those associated with the team. It wasn't that they had short memories from the whooppin' they took the year before. On this day, the had something to prove.

And so like the year before, I got down to the Observer building and waited for Mike, my boss, to show up so I can drive us to Trenton State. But this time around it was different -- I had a "newer" older car in a 1982 Olds Firenza instead of my 1977 Chevy Dodge that died a slow death in the spring/summer of '94. This time around, we had to wait for Laura, our photographer who was going to shoot what I figured would be just another futile effort at a state field hockey title for Lacey.

This time around, the car radio had 660 WFAN on listening to previews of the NFL games going on that afternoon instead of my Sunday staple, "American Top 40," which had been cancelled after 24 years that July. Such a tough adjustment in life I was still getting used to.

"Do we think this time around the game is going to be closer?" I asked the duo.

"I don't know," Mike answered. "It has to be better than last year."

"I hope so," I said. "For a 22-0-3 team, that was getting dominated."

The ride to Trenton State, now The College of New Jersey, was familiar to me since I had done it enough times over the years, especially three previous times for state field hockey championships. In 1987, I saw Toms River North finish out a perfect 21-0-3 season by beating Morristown, 2-1, covering the game from a halfway-decent-at-best press box that was open on a 25-degree night, but closed up behind me so the wind wouldn't whip through me. And in a far better press box, I had seen South and Lacey take their swipes at West Essex before losing.

As the three of us showed our press credentials, we walked on to the football field, me thinking that I might be seeing another execution similar to last year's finale. These Lions, though, were focused, maybe too focused. I remember the 1993 team was all-business, rarely ever cracking a smile. I wondered if following the same path would doom these girls to failure. On the other side, West Essex was smoothly going through their drills like nothing, business as usual.

Vizzuso, a future player for the U.S. national team, was smooth in her approach. Nothing was getting past her.

The only thing I was left with as I headed up to the press box for the first half like I did last year was if the Lions would be OK after the first few minutes, even playing in front of a large contingent of fans who made the trip from Lanoka Harbor and Forked River.

Immediately, I noticed these Lions were not intimidated by the nationally known Knights. They took it right at them. They served notice that they weren't going to be pushed around this time. They were the aggressors. They were aggressive in their approach, but not to a point where if play got stopped by fouls -- or even cards -- they would have to alter things a bit.

Ten minutes elapsed and no quick-strike West Essex goal. Then at the 15-minute mark, the Lions picked up their fourth penalty corner of the game. Giving the Lions three penalty corners was bad enough already.

Now Lacey was about to make West Essex pay for it. Sauers once again grabbed the ball and placed it on the baseline to the left of the goalkeeper cage and served up her pass to the center of the circle like she had hundreds of times before during the season. And as usual, the ball found the stick of Melnyk, who was able to stop it, steady it and fire a rocket.

This time, the ball zipped past goalkeeper Kim Lally and into the net for a score. Lally did not know what hit her. And neither did West Essex. For unlike a year ago, Lacey found the back of the net.

Lacey had the lead and more amazingly, it was Melnyk scoring on a penalty corner shot on an AstroTurf field. She had scored on grass fields and fields posing as grass, but more dirt than any other surface. She had handled passes from Sauers that were bumpier than some rides you and I take because of the field. Some balls would just skip and go another direction, others would take funny hops over her stick. On this turf, though, the passes were coming out to her fast and true. And she had the reflexes to stop them, steady the ball and whack away.

For the rest of the half, West Essex tried to get the equalizer, but were stopped by a Lacey defense that was still getting more physical -- and confident -- as the game went along. I can still see Sara Vizzuso, Michelle's sister, sent flying by a shot administered by Jacobsen, the no-holds-barred enforcer of the defense.

These Knights suddenly realized down 1-0 at halftime these weren't the '93 Lions they were playing.

That was when I realized they may have a better fit for the Trenton State turf on this day than the group assembled a year ago. Though a precarious 1-0 lead, at least they had the lead and dictated the play. It was up to West Essex to adjust and find a way to make something happen.

I left bewildered fellow journalists and slipped down to the field for the second half like I did the year before. I wanted to see this up close for myself. Mike was down on the field and he even said he could hear West Essex players and legendary coach Linda Alimi complaining about Lacey's aggressive style. My mind started to wander a bit -- was this being used as a ploy by the Wessex people just in case they lost on this day?

Better yet, was Lacey's play getting inside the West Essex players' heads? I was thinking the latter. I'm pretty certain during the season, the Knights, for all the talent they had -- and they had an embarassing amount of talent -- had not seen a team quite as physical as this Lacey team was. Then again, I didn't think Lacey was the most aggressive team at the Shore.

The first few minutes of the second half might tell me more and to see it up close, I might have a feel of what was going on.

Sure as anything, the Knights had changed their approach. They became the aggressor and the passes they were missing on during the game were starting to find sticks. They moved precisely up the Lacey side of the field without much problem and picked up a number of penalty corner opportunities. On the second of those chances, Michelle Vizzuso would deliver a shot that Leta, the daughter of Lacey baseball coach and assistant field hockey coach Ernie Leta, would pad-save to keep it 1-0.

You couldn't keep these Knights down, though. Vizzuso sent a pass in to Melissa D'Anton. D'Anton didn't hesitate, firing a shot past Leta at the 5:02 mark to make it 1-1.

Suddenly, the balloon began to deflate ... again, just like last year. One goal and it seemed like the confidence, too, would be deflating on the Lacey sideline. But unlike last year when the first West Essex goal made it 1-0, this one just tied it. It was still even ground and everyone in the stands and on the sidelines knew it.

As if they pressed a button, the Lions of the first half re-emerged, being aggressive and taking the ball down on the Knights' defense. They had their sixth penalty corner of the game shortly after that.

And once again -- three minutes after the West Essex goal -- it was Melnyk Time.

Sauers put the ball out to Melnyk. Defender Nicole Massella was the team's flier, the first out of the net on defensing the penalty corners. She was a thorn in the side of the Lions a year before when they tried to score off the same penalty corners. This year, though, she wanted no part of the Melnyk blasts. Melnyk fired. The ball whizzed past Massella and Lally, too. Her 17th goal of the season made it 2-1.

Now the Lions had to protect the lead with 21:49 left in this battle.

And with the defense tightening up, the Knights were getting very little, if anything, of a threat going. Near the end of the first half, Michelle Vizzuso had to be treated for a bloody knee suffered by being sent to the turf. And D'Anton was being roughed up like a rag doll in the second half.

If the Knights were going to keep complaining about the aggressive Lacey defense, they were going to suffer more of the consequences. The Knights only put a couple of more chances out in the Lacey side of the field, but were turned away each time. Lacey was winning the midfield battle, thanks to Glancy and Bacheson.

Even with under 10 minutes to play, I still had some doubt as to whether the Lions could hold on. Each West Essex threat in Lacey territory had Lacey substitutes standing up from the bench in angst. Shern was "yoo-hoo"-ing his players to find open teammates and get out of danger, while he would slow down the West Essex pace with a number of substitutions, shuttling fresh bodies into the game.

By the way, the "yoo-hoo" call was a longtime staple of Shern's in his 28 years as coach.

With eight minutes left, sophomore defender Karen Kaufman went down. She had been sent into the game just minutes earlier, but now she needed to come out with an injury. Shern sent in fellow sophomore Casey Badach, one of many soccer players who had been taught the game of field hockey by the popular Shern since soccer was played in the spring at the Jersey Shore and in the fall everywhere else.

As the whistle sounded again, Lacey defenders continued to be aggressive with any West Essex player threatening to penetrate the goal area with close coverage or poking the ball away from them.

With over four minutes left in the game, the Lions had another threat. Glancy managed to take the ball into the West Essex box and poked toward the net, trying to stir up some kind of trouble for Lally. But Lally could not get a hold of the ball. Instead, it was Badach of all people who was able to get the ball, and push it past Lally and into the net with 3:57 left to play.

Remember those doubts for five days and on the road trip to Trenton State College? With the score Lacey 3, West Essex 1, they were all gone.

The air was also gone from the West Essex sidelines. Glancy even said after the game that after the third goal, she heard Knights players crying and the game wasn't even over.

But to West Essex it was. And with the roles reversed from the year before, it was Lacey that was all business the final 3:57, running the clock out and then celebrating by piling on one another at midfield at the end. The thunderous roar from the Lacey side of the Trenton State College stands could probably be heard all the way back in Ocean County.

They had just pulled off the Miracle of Route 31.

And suddenly, I -- the man who wrote the team needed a miracle to beat this West Essex juggernaut -- was the target of Lacey players. In the middle of interviewing Shern, I can hear Jacobsen, the head cheerleader and point-prover of the bunch, gather her team around no more than 10 feet from me, looking up at the fans and screaming, "Give me an M! (M!!) Give me an I!! (I!!) Give me an R!! (R!!) ... " spelling out miracle and making her point clear.

But they couldn't believe what they had just accomplished. No, these weren't the 1993 Lacey Lions. And I know they weren't better than that team. Yet, they had the moxie the '93 team didn't have. That team was too stoic, a lot of shy characters who were athletically talented but not outspoken.

This team took a stance early on in '94 that no one was going to give it any credit during the season, but yet, they'd find a way to pull out what would be the biggest upset in Ocean County field hockey history.

Make that, New Jersey field hockey history.

And they wanted to let the world know it at that point. All week long, they got reportedly razzed by Lacey High football players that they had no chance of winning it all. Now whether that was tongue in cheek or for motivational purposes, these Lions players took it personally. Melnyk took swipes at the football players, basically telling the truth that hurt the most.

"They won't ever win a state championship," she said. "We just won Lacey's first state title."

She was right! For as great as Lacey's football team is year in and year out, it would never win a state title because the NJSIAA won't allow teams to play beyond the sectional round. Lacey had back-to-back SJ III titles in 1988 and '89.

This group of Lions had a state championship. They were going home on a bus, but they may as well have gone home riding on a cloud.

Mike, Laura and I were riding back very pleased, too, unlike the year before when there wasn't anything to really talk about with the game. It was non-stop banter about the game and what we had just witnessed for the better part of an hour and a half.

When we got back to Toms River and had a chance to finally focus on the task at hand, I had six pages to fill up that day. SIX! A far cry sadly compared to where three pages is like Christmas at the paper I'm working at now. We decided to dedicate the top of the front sports page with my game story and two great pictures from Laura.

On the sixth page -- a wide-open one -- Mike and I decided to dedicate it to the game. He wrote two more stories. I wrote two more stories on the game, including the sidebar on the Lacey field hockey players' venting against the football players who doubted them. Within a day or two, I had heard that Messiah, err, Lacey football coach Lou Vircillo was not at all happy with us nor with the field hockey players taking pop shots at his players. To this day, I still say, "Oh, well" to that. Melnyk admitted to me she was a bit emotional when she said those things, but I asked her, "Did they really say those negative things before the game that week?" and she said they did.

"Nothing wrong with the emotion as long as you back it up with something great," I told her a week or so later on when we discussed that whole incident. "I'll back you every time."

We had dedicated that entire sixth page of the section to the field hockey triumph that wasn't supposed to be. Even my boss rolled his eyes to the back of his head. I still don't think he believes to this day we had done so much on just one game.

But it was an amazing event. Unfortunately by October 1995, the Shore Conference made the decision to move girls soccer to the fall, and a lot of girls who tried field hockey because it was similar in many ways to soccer, stayed with soccer. Lacey would win another SJ III title in 1995, but lost in the Group III semifinal to Red Bank Regional, which shared the SCT title that fall with Toms River East.

And by 1996 with girls sports divided between field hockey and soccer, Lacey lost a controversial SJ III semifinal matchup with West Deptford. The magic after that would never quite be the same again.

It was a great era to cover field hockey in the 1980s and '90s. It culminated in two state championships, one in each decade.

But none quite like that afternoon in November 1994 at TSC, now TCNJ. Not in a million years did I see one of our field hockey teams beat a national power like West Essex, a team just too talented to fail.

As I found out that day, it's OK to believe in miracles.

An epic 1988 battle under grey, yucky skies

The morning of Saturday, November 19, 1988 was a grey, yucky one in Lacey Township, as if something bad was going to happen on this day.

But I sensed something totally different. On this day, I sensed something amazing was about to take place.

For the first time in its short history as a program, the Lacey Township High School football team was going after a state sectional championship, hosting the NJSIAA South Jersey Group III championship game. The Lions were a team loaded with talent, from wide receiver Mike Lehtinen to kicker-receiver Carl Tarricone to sophomore quarterback Garrett Gardi to all-everything junior running back Keith Elias.

Elias was the focal point of the Lion attack. Everything seemed to be pegged around this talented and smart young man with the affinity for heavy metal. Never in my life had I met an athlete that had Ivy League smarts and headbanger attitude.

But to win that first SJ III title, the Lions were going to have to beat Woodrow Wilson of Camden, a squad with an overly rich amount of athleticism led by quarterback Norman Frisbey and wide receiver-running back Marvin Goodwin. Their coach was a former pro player with the New England Patriots of the NFL and Toronto Argonauts of the CFL, Darrell Wilson.

And it was a battle of diversity -- Lacey, an all-white, football talent-laden group against Wilson, an all-African American squad with athleticism up the wazoo and some football smarts.

Two teams evenly matched. Someone was leaving that field exuberant, the other completely disappointed.

To get to my normal spot in the press box was nothing at Lacey High. Tom Hamilton, who I knew from covering girls soccer as coach Paul Groben's assistant, was on the public address system.

But it was a bit crowded on this day. Upstairs with Tom, myself, the timekeeper and the scoreboard operator were the boys from Clear Channel 8 -- the venerable Ken Turp along with his analysts and former area high school coaches, George Jeck at Toms River East and Bob Strangia at Red Bank Regional. Now Jeck was an OK guy, though he just completely turned me off my first Friday night of covering high school football with the Ocean County Observer four years earlier with such a taciturn attitude toward me after his Raiders beat Brick Memorial, 3-0. Little did I know at that time this was the beginning of his final year with the program.

Strangia, though, was a different bird. A heavy-set, jovial man who knew his football, Strangia was head coach of a Central Jersey Group III championship Red Bank Regional team in 1975 when his Bucs won a wild contest with Hightstown, 46-44. And his main assistant on that team was Lacey High's current head coach, Lou Vircillo. There's a famous story that goes along with that '75 championship that the morning of the title game, Strangia and Vircillo got together and drove to nearby Middletown to go to the cemetery and visit the grave site of the great Vince Lombardi, "talk" to him before the game to get inspiration and pray. Somehow, this translated into what was a great day for the Bucs.

Now fast-forward 13 years later. And unlike most high school football games now, the place was packed. Well over 1,000 spectators for this title game. There was no doubt these were the two best teams in the SJ III classification. Then again, they were the only two teams in the classification that qualified. Usually, it's a four-team classification, but based on the power point rankings and overall records, they were the only two schools to meet the requirements of playing in this game.

It was literally winner-take-all.

Problem was, someone forgot to tell Wilson players that. Lacey was able to shut down the vaunted Wilson version of the run-and-shoot offense after the Tigers scored on the first drive. Frisbey could not get anything going with Lacey defenders turning them back at all stops.

On offense, the Lions were able to move the ball against a somewhat porous Tigers defense. And where the Lions' offensive line was able to make holes, Elias was able to slash through them for big chunks of yards. Gardi had delivered one touchdown run of 6 yards in the first half and Elias had scored on touchdown runs of 9 and 49 yards to give the Lions a 21-8 halftime lead.

The Lions didn't stop there. They drove the ball deep into Tigers territory midway through the third quarter and when Elias darted in for a 9-yard score with 2:28 left and Tarricone added the extra point to make it 28-8, I, like most other people, figured game over.

If the Lions got through the last 14:28 unscathed, they were going to have a big party on their field with the fans and all that were there.

But Woodrow Wilson didn't get to this game by lucking out most of the year. They were about to make what was a mundane, uneventful title matchup into something anyone at the school that afternoon would never forget.

And it started as innocently as a kickoff return, which Allen Littles brought back 48 yards to the Lions' 45. Frisbey had taken the Tigers down the field once all day -- an opening-drive touchdown pass to Terrill Bullock of 4 yards. He suddenly found his groove again, but it had a price tag attached to it.

As Frisbey, who would chuck the pigskin 23 times on the day, dropped back to pass, he had pressure on him, like he did most of the afternoon. He spotted his receiver, but as he got the ball off, he was hit with the near force of a freight train by lineman Chris Luberto.

The pass was lofted in the direction of wide receiver John McCain -- no not that John McCain. I'm positive he's never met Sarah Palin in his life. McCain out-jumped a Lacey defender for the ball, came down with it, then juked another Lacey secondary guy to get to the end zone to finish out the 45-yard score to make it 28-16 as Frisbey ran in the 2-point conversion.

So it was a big play, but it still signified nothing. It was how the Lions were going to recover from that quick-strike touchdown that was going to tell me if the rest of the afternoon was a cakewalk or not. And the Lions were not disappointing, driving the ball late in the third quarter and into the final period into the Wilson red zone. The drive, though, stalled when Elias was stripped inside the 10 and Donnie Hill recovered at the 8 with 11:11 remaining.

Still no concern or any idea of how exciting this was about to become yet. The Tigers had the ball, though, and Frisbey was executing coach Wilson's offensive game plan with simplicity against a Lions defense that was tiring from chasing all the Wilson receivers and backs around the field. A dink here, a dunk there. The Tiger offense was playing ball control and not relying on the big play.

Wilson had the ball inside the 5 and capped the 12-play, 92-yard drive when Frisbey tossed to McCain for a 4-yard score. McCain had picked on the Lions' defense for 174 yards receiving on seven catches because Lacey was trying hard to stop Goodwin. The Tigers really had no kicking game and down 28-22, they decided on another 2-point conversion.

At this point, I could almost see the wheels turning in Vircillo's head down below. He sensed his guys were getting tired, so he turned to someone he could rely on to make something happen defensively.

And suddenly, a guy wearing No. 20 ran in from the Lacey sidelines. It was Elias, who Vircillo strictly made an offensive player this particular season. Sure as anything, the Tigers were going to find out what Elias was like coming off the bench and having to play defense. Frisbey dropped back, then rolled out toward the sideline. He saw Goodwin in his sights and threw to him. Out of nowhere, though, came Elias to get a hand on the ball and knock it away.

Elias saved the moment, but the Lions were in a precarious situation ahead 28-22 with 6:03 left in the game. They needed a sustained drive, just to keep the ball away from the Tigers offense that was running on all cylinders and seemed unstoppable. After Lacey picked up a first down, the Tigers had the Lions on third down and sacked Gardi for a 4-yard loss at the Lacey 37.

There was no fooling around. Vircillo got Tarricone to punt the ball away. He got a 33-yarder off and the Tigers were starting at their 30 with 3:02 left. The Lions needed to make one more stop defensively and victory was all theirs.

But as if he never missed a beat from the 92-yard drive, Frisbey went back to work. An 8-yarder to Littles. A 7-yarder to Bullock. A first down. Then an incompletion, making it second and 10 at the Tiger 45.

On the next play, Frisbey dropped back again and fired down the field. Once again, McCain was at the receiving end to make an amazing catch. He was brought down at the Lacey 1, setting up first and goal after the 54-yard play.

The Tigers were in great shape to get the tying score and weren't in any hurry. Then again, the Tigers were out of timeouts, yet at the 1, they could take their time. Vircillo was in no hurry either. He had two timeouts to call. He did not call one as the clock ticked under 1:30 in the game.

But the Tigers lost perception of the play clock and got called for delay of game, putting the ball back at the 6. They tried a run with Goodwin, who got to the 2. Still no timeout. Then came incomplete passes on second and third downs.

Now it was fourth down. The game was on the line. The Lacey fans stood up in unison, cheering the Lions on for one more stop. Frisbey took the snap and rolled out to his right, trying to find his receiver with Lion defenders pursuing. As they got closer to him, he spotted Goodwin, who had been kept in check all day. A quick flick of the wrist and less than a second later, Goodwin had the ball in the back of the end zone for the tying touchdown with 11 seconds to play.

Now coach Wilson had to figure out how he would win the game, either a run or a pass. Figured someone would have to make one more play defensively for Lacey to keep it tied at 28.

So imagine my surprise -- and probably everyone on the Lacey side of the field's surprise -- when Wilson trotted Brian McNair out to kick an extra point. Really? Now!? The kid's been sitting on the sideline and I'm sure his leg was a tad bit cold other than on kickoffs.

The result was obvious -- he missed his kick wide left and the game remained tied at 28. The decision to kick the extra-point was not as questionable with the game still tied at 28. But what was about to happen next was completely inexplicable, even with 11 seconds to play.

McNair squib-kicked instead of trying to blast it as far as he could. Even if the ball goes through the end zone for a touchback, going 80 yards in 11 seconds is near impossible for a high school team. But the pooch was fair-caught by Steve Wells at the Lacey 44.

Most everyone now was expecting a run to Elias, see if he could make something happen and if he didn't, maybe Vircillo lets the clock click to zero and start again in overtime. Heck, I thought that as well. I wouldn't have blamed Vircillo or his coaches for making that decision to give his kids a chance to catch their breath.

That, though, is why I don't make football-related calls. Vircillo would tell me after the game he wasn't thinking about overtime, though if they had gone to overtime, he assured me his players were going to be ready.

On the first play after the pooch kick, Gardi pitched back to Elias. A run ... just as I thought.

But Elias stopped. My jaw dropped. He cocked his right arm back and fired down the field. There was Lehtinen, who was practically wide open. All the pass needed to be was on the mark. It was.

Lehtinen had to wait a little bit for the ball to get to him, but once he did, he was off to the races. He was taken down by a pair of Wilson defenders at the Wilson 13 after the 43-yard halfback pass and Gardi called timeout as fast as they could.

The clock read 0:02. Vircillo brought the kick team in and Tarricone was summoned to bring Lacey its first state sectional title. After the game, Tarricone admitted that three years earlier as a freshman, he had a chance to put the final touches on a perfect season with a last-second field goal against Central Regional, which he did.

Now, he was back in this situation again. Gardi set up at the Wilson 21. Tarricone counted off his paces back to where he would start his ascent to the football. The snap was true, Gardi caught the ball perfectly and placed it down on the turf for Tarricone. The senior was perfect in his steps to the ball. His kick eluded Tiger defenders' hands who were trying to make a block.

It split the uprights. Bedlam on the Lacey side. Players jumped up and down uncontrollably. Even the stoic Vircillo was excited by the outcome. Teammates mobbed Tarricone and took him to the turf.

And from the left corner of the press box I can hear Strangia sounding like he was somewhere between excited and having a heart attack as the ball split the uprights, trying to explain what had just happened through his excitement. As a note: For years after that game, Clear Cable-8, which would become Adelphia-8, would use Strangia's near-breathless reaction to the game-winning field goal as it's highlight to promote its football coverage.

It was that amazing of a finish. And now I had to try to put what I had witnessed into English. Vircillo was back to being Lou Vircillo -- dry, near-monotone, questioning whatever it was I asked him, and just being downright tough. But he was proud of the kids. Tarricone needed a pin to prick him from the sky since he was floating on a cloud.

And Keith Elias -- yeah, he was Keith Elias as always. He had finished the game with 206 yards rushing on 26 carries and was exhausted. But he always had enough to tell it like it was, his outgoing, opinionated persona showing through, saying things I could never put in print. But that's part of the reason why Keith Elias, who would have a stellar career at Princeton University and play for the New York Giants and Indianapolis Colts, is one of the best people I've ever covered in my career.

Putting a game story like this into 25 inches of perspective -- or less -- is far from a piece of cake, yet I managed to compartmentalize as best as I could. The game had four parts to it -- the early 28-8 Lacey lead, the Wilson comeback, the exciting end and the elation afterward.

At the end of 1989, our paper did a Best of the 1980s. That Lacey victory was named the biggest game of the decade. Lacey had 407 yards of offense that afternoon, Wilson piled up 374. A year after that epic battle, the two teams would meet again on Lacey's field for the SJ III title. I was expecting 52-50 this time. Wishful thinking since both teams had almost all their stars from the '88 game back, but still as exciting. Elias went for 182 yards rushing on 36 carries and led Lacey to its second straight SJ III crown, 28-24.

I got to cover that one, too, and yes, it was a great and exciting game again.

But it could not match the fireworks -- nor the ending -- of that '88 title game, still the greatest high school football game I ever covered.

And the only bad thing about that day was it was grey and yucky. For the football that was played under those clouds, it was worth it.