The unconventional way to break in a new car

Never in my life did I believe that I could own an automobile as long as I have owned my 1999 Toyota Corolla. It has 227,000 miles on it, and as long as I get the oil changed every 2,500 miles now and get the things fixed that need fixing, it will continue to run and run and run.

I thank my dad and sister for convincing me 11 years ago on Friday, February 22, 2002 to purchase the Toyota over four other cars (including a jeep). They obviously had an instinct and knew enough about Toyotas to say it would do me good to go in that direction.

But if anyone treated a car the way I did within the first month I had the car, they'd think I was abusing the darn thing.

How? Well, let me set the story up with how we got to this point:

During February 2002, I was having on-and-off problems with my 1993 Ford Thunderbird LX. I had gotten that car in December 1996 and, believe me, that, too, was an awesome car to have, especially with the sun roof. And when I moved to the Florida Keys in 1999, I spent many a trip going up and down the Overseas Highway with the top open.

Still, my car was breaking down at the 175,000-mile mark. I could start the darn thing up and it would start to overheat no more than about a couple of miles into the ride. I didn't know why, but our computer guy at the Key West Citizen, a young man named Jeremy, had a good friend of his who fixed cars who was visiting for about a month or so from Ohio. They both took a look at the car and said, "It can be fixed."

So I put my trust in Jeremy's buddy to fix the problem. Well, this was no cheap little venture. I think on his friend's behalf I spent over $650 getting parts and putting my trust that they will fix the problem and I can continue on with my life and being able to get around town and cover things.

One of those things I had planned to cover was the Florida High School Athletic Association 1A wrestling championship at the Lakeland Center some seven-to-eight hours from where I was on the Florida Keys. It would have been easy for me to tell third-year Key West High coach Troy Bowe to call in the results, but I literally watched his program grow up in the three winters I was living in the Keys. And he had taken quite a few wrestlers with him to Lakeland this time around after they had survived district and regional action.

Bowe had 119-pounder Max Hooten going. He had 130-pounder Bayardo Gomez. There was also 145-pounder Mike Weber and heavyweight Aaron Barker. But the three guys I thought could make a dent in the end were 135-pounder Tony Lombardi, a tough-nosed wrestler with a street-wise mentality and well-versed with his moves, 215-pounder Cody Granger, a senior with a never-ending motor who only knew one direction -- go, and 189-pounder Justin Duck, a senior and easily Bowe's best pupil. In three years, he had improved a little each time out and now he was one of the favorites to win the weight class.

Just one year earlier, the Conchs and Bowe had one wrestler go after a state title in senior heavyweight Chaz Jimenez, a super-sensational kid who played on the football team and had carved his own little niche on the wrestling mats. But 20 seconds into his championship, he got caught in a move by his opponent and not only did the opponent take him down, he broke his leg, too.

An unfortunate end to the season, but at least a feather in the cap of the program just two years in. And now, those Conch wrestlers, Bowe and "Sid" -- assistant coach Randy Lehan -- were going back to Lakeland to make an even louder noise in their third year as a program. And I wanted to see the end result, which I was figuring would be Duck's state championship.

Yes, I admit to being a disgruntled rebel as a sports editor who really wasn't a sports editor, a decision that was out of my hands the previous August when the far-from-brilliant minds at the Citizen thought it was a grand idea to make someone else an executive sports editor over me. But I also knew that covering high school sports was still our bread and butter and at any newspaper, it's pretty darned important. And my attitude of "a day not in the office is a great day covering something" was becoming my almost everyday mantra.

But to get there, I needed a working car. That, too, was pretty important.

Back to Jeremy and his buddy. Jeremy was a smart young man to be our paper's IT guy at 23 years old. He was also dating my assistant Jen, so I knew him quite well at the time. It was Thursday morning, February 21, 2002, and Jeremy and his friend both told me the car was ready. The buddy had been tinkering with the car for the better part of a week, so it better be working and not overheating. He was pretty assured the car would go without trouble. OK.

I started up the car, thanked them and off I went. And once again, some two miles after leaving their place, the car began to overheat. And I can see this was not going to be good. I managed to get the car back to Jeremy's place and bitched both of them out this time. I finally broke down and decided to take the car to the dealership that I was working with in case anything went wrong. They were able to diagnose the problem far better than Jeremy's friend could.

Cracked blocks. I called Jeremy back and got his friend and told him what the dealership workers told me.

"Oh," was his first reaction. "I don't do cracked blocks."

I hung up. Angry. Wanting to wring his neck. What a waste of freakin' time!

I knew it was over for my Thunderbird. It obviously could not handle the Florida heat anymore. So the next trick was getting a new car the next day. I could only drive the car locally before it overheated its way to a stop and I walked what was about a mile from my apartment on Duck Avenue to the Citizen building that night to work.

Come Friday morning, February 22, 2002, I had a long day ahead of me. Up at 10 a.m., I began to take some of the stuff in my car and put it in the apartment, some stuff I would keep in the transfer to whatever new vehicle I was about to purchase. The car staggered to the dealership just over a mile away, but it got there, the last time I would turn the engine off once I parked it.

A guy named Steve came out of his office and asked if he could help me and I said, "We could be here awhile." So the first 45 minutes was spent looking at cars in the lot, me being choosy over what I wanted to get in the front seat of, and comparing prices, which is far from a recreational sport considering the expensive lifestyle of the Keys and the minimal money you are left with at the end after paying bills.

And I realized by about 11:30 I couldn't make this decision alone, so I made a phone call to the one person who I thought could help me that lived nearby.

My ex-girlfriend Beth. Even though we had broken up 11 months earlier, we were still living in the same apartment complex and we didn't despise being in the same area together. I knew she was off from work on Fridays from her hygienist job. The one thing I will always say about Beth was that at times, I probably put her through hell with things she didn't want to do, but she was an absolute trooper. I still hope her husband realizes how lucky he is to have her.

Naturally, one of the things we get to do with cars is to test-drive those babies. And I got to do that with Beth -- five different times in five different cars. We would go up to Mile Marker 8 about six miles away and come back each time. I loved the jeep that I drove, the kind that you can basically unbutton and drive in the wide-open. But I can still hear my mother telling me how dangerous those things were, especially with a guy I grew up with who had a serious accident when a jeep he was driving did not hug the corner right and flipped over on him, causing him injury.

But Beth and I did agree we enjoyed riding in the white Toyota Corolla that was on the mostly Ford lot. The car had very few miles on it -- 13,927 to be exact -- and it just felt right. That's when I made a phone call to New Jersey to talk to my dad and sister, who were both on the phone at the same time, both convincing me I couldn't go wrong with a Toyota. My dad had a 1991 Toyota himself and he loved his, so that was convincing enough that I would take it.

That was just after 4 p.m. Well, little did I know that the next two hours of my life would be spent going over paperwork, hearing Steve tell me about the payments, me agreeing to a plan that would be the right fit for me, me making another phone call about financing, etc., etc. etc., with Beth still being a trooper about all this. Oh, and once I got the car in my possession, I had to move everything that was in my old trunk and car into my new car. That was a whole lot of fun, too.

It was finally 6:30 p.m. and my nearly eight hours on the lot was over. I felt like I put a full day in at the dealership myself. And I still had work to do and catch up on what was going on in the wide world of Keys sports.

It wasn't until 7:30 when I walked in to work. Jen knew I was not in a good mood the day before with her boyfriend or his buddy. But on this day, I was just happy to have her there and know that I had a new car. I think I laid out a page while she took care of the other pages and I just called around to see what was going on in local sports. And that meant getting the phone call from Bowe to tell me how his wrestlers did from up at the Lakeland Center. That came after 9:30 p.m.

Hooten, Gomez, Barker and Weber were gone, all losers in first-round matches and only two of them winning wrestlebacks before losing a second time. But Lombardi, Granger and Duck were still alive. I knew what I was going up to Lakeland to see that next morning.

Yes, I was determined to test drive the new baby I had in a very unusual way after I got done with work, which I did by about 12:45 in the morning like I normally did. Jen went home after laying out the pages and I got the last of my stuff done, but I still had one phone call left. I had not told Troy whether I was officially coming up his way or not to cover the event because of the whole car fiasco that I had told him about. I know he was upset when I told him the car broke down and I didn't know what I was going to do. But I was pretty darned determined to make it up that way and I felt good with the new automobile, so I was going to leave a message on his cell phone, figuring he may have turned the phone off to let it charge overnight.

It was after midnight. One ring. Two rings. Then a pickup.

"Hello?" 

"Troy? Sorry to wake you up. I meant to leave a message with you to tell you that I was going to be coming up this morning. I will see you later on."

"Cool. See ya then."

It's the little things you remember, I guess.

Anyway, still awake at 1 in the morning, I got home to the apartment and packed my bags for what would be a four-day road trip. The first two days would be spent in Lakeland, the next two at my cousin Marcia and her husband Jim's place in Stuart. I had state wrestling to cover on Saturday in Lakeland and on Tuesday, I would be at Pope John Paul High in Boca Raton for Key West High's boys basketball state tournament sectional semifinal.

Four days worth of packing was done and my bags were in my brand new car heading north ... for a loooooooong ride.

As anyone knows, if you live in the Florida Keys, nothing is close by. The ride to Florida City alone is 10 minutes short of three hours. Whether I liked it or not in my time living there, I still had to acknowledge local speed limits and you weren't allowed to go any faster than 55 mph. So it was about 5:30 in the morning. I arrived in Florida City and I had a decision to make -- take US-1 up to I-95 and drive for free up to Vero Beach or jump on to Florida's Turnpike, pay tolls and go up to Yeehaw Junction or start on I-95 going north and get off an exit that runs perpendicular with the Turnpike and jump on, saving in toll money until getting to Yeehaw Junction.

I chose the third option, getting off at the Fort Pierce exit and getting on the Turnpike there. Still, it was about 9 in the morning by the time I finally reached Yeehaw Junction. I figured I was going great and that the rest of the ride wasn't going to take long. Well, somewhere in the middle of this vacant hole of nothing but farms and orange groves called State Road-60 did I make a mistake. I was doing my best to avoid local traffic ... but found myself getting further and further away from my destination. I had to stop to eat something at 10:30 and I didn't care if it was Waffle House ... which it turned out to be.

Coffee. More coffee. A third cup? Absolutely! I was somewhere on US-27 heading north. Little did I know I should have just kept taking SR-60 into just below Lakeland and going north on US-98. Worse, the weather was cloudy and drizzling. And temperatures were in the low 50s, a 20-degree difference from what I left hours ago.

By the time I got back onto the road, it was 11:30 and I knew I was running late, and worse, I had a premonition I wasn't close to where I was supposed to be. I figured I'd be at the Lakeland Center no later than 11. And now it's noon. Finally, I'm on I-4. And I realize that my exit to get to the Lakeland Center is still another 15 miles away. And there's traffic on a miserable Saturday afternoon. And if I hear LeAnn Rimes' "Can't Fight The Moonlight" one more time on the radio of my new car, I'm going to scratch somebody's eyeballs out.

Worse, I had never been to Lakeland before, so I had no idea of this huge place I was going toward. The only thing I had was directions and following signs to get there. It was just after 12:45 p.m. that I reached the Lakeland Center, a huge arena just to the west of the main downtown area.

I was relieved and tired. But the car got me to where I had to go. It was one heck of a test drive -- over 350 miles.

I found the entrance way to this big building and got my press credentials, following the directions of those who pointed me to where I had to go. There were eight mats set up inside the arena, two rows of four mats. But in a huge place where all three classifications were wrestling for state titles, I had to be patient to find out when my three remaining Conchs were still wrestling.

Somewhere in the throng of wrestlers, coaches and officials, I found Mike Hess, a man who had helped to develop wrestlers in the Florida Keys by running a club there. His pupils were members of the Key West High team, including the three guys who were still left. He had the misfortune to tell me Lombardi had lost to Jacksonville Bolles School's Justin Kaperman in a tough bout, 5-3. I knew he had a very special relationship with Tony Lombardi, so it hurt him that he had to describe the match and how his guy came up short. For Tony, it meant he had to go to wrestlebacks and the hope of a state championship was gone.

But Duck and Granger still had their semifinal matches to go. I got there in time. I saw Duck and he was prepared for his opponent. With my press pass, I was allowed to go anywhere within the confines of the floor, but I couldn't actually go on the mat. So behind Troy and "Sid," I watched as Duck -- my favorite of all the Conch wrestlers -- take another step toward a state championship by dominating Lecanto's Billy Simmons, 9-1, to reach the final, just like his good friend Jimenez the year before. I can still remember Justin coming off the mat in a business-like manner, shaking hands with his coaches and just isolating himself as Granger went on to his semifinal bout at 215. Cody was in a tough bout with Lake Wales' Sam Smith. Unfortunately for him, Smith outpointed him in the end, 4-3. His hope of a state championship was gone.

This allowed me to catch up with the coaches on what was going on. In the three seasons I knew Troy Bowe, he had waited for this moment ... to take a group of talented youngsters to the state meet and let them experience what the state championships were about. Troy is a former grappler himself from wrestling-crazy Wisconsin. Randy was a state champion from Pennsylvania who was a Division III All-American in the sport. Those two coaches ate, drank and slept the sport and the guys they were coaching were taking in everything they were teaching them.

This was a good time to be a Key Wester. The wrestling team was rolling in its third year, the boys basketball team was on its way to a memorable run in the state 4A playoffs. Definitely a good time to be covering all this ... and being away from the desk that was hindering me and the office I was hating to be in more and more each day. I didn't want to miss a thing as the so-called "guy in charge."

In their wrestlebacks, Lombardi lost another tough match, this time to Hollywood Chaminade-Madonna's Brian Nitzberg, 4-2, but Granger was able to upend Jacksonville Episcopal's Samuel Ritter, 8-2, to get to the third-place match, another big step for the program.

In between matches, I had a chance to talk with Lehan, a very knowledgeable assistant and one of the best in any sport I've ever come across. I told him I was doing a column on him and he was sorta hesitant about any attention he was getting, but I assured him it wasn't going to be too over-the top. In between matches, I found an hour out of my busy schedule to make it over to the nearby Lakeland Ledger, asking their sports department heads if I could use their Internet and computers to write a column, which I was able to do. I banged that baby out in just about an hour, confirmed with Jen that she had the story, and told those at the paper I'd be back to write my story afterward. I wasn't sure if they were all that crazy about me using their computer, but they were nice to me nonetheless. Back in the miserable, cloudy, yucky weather I went to the Lakeland Center again. 

Inside, I finally found a spot to sit at on press row. It was just myself, my press pass around my neck and a notebook along with a folder of information I needed for the day I was there without a chance to actually sit down. Sitting next to me was a young man who was there to do stories for various newspapers, including the Star-Banner in Ocala. His name was Richard and I think he found it interesting that I was coming up from the Keys to do a story for my paper. I think we spent the better part of the late afternoon and early evening just talking papers and wrestling and we struck up a friendship that still lasts 11 years later.

The finals were set to go off at about 6:30 p.m., and that meant all the finals of all 14 wrestling weight classes in all three classifications. First, though, was the end to Lombardi's and Granger's seasons. Lombardi defeated Tallahassee Chiles' Steve Sivyer, 13-9, to take fifth place at 135 pounds. And Granger finished his career off in a fantastic way -- he pinned his opponent, Pierson Taylor's Andre Reese, in 4:58 to claim third place in the 215-pound class.

Was Duck going to make for a storybook ending for the Conchs in the third year of the program? Could the first state title be in the making?

I was going to have wait a while since Duck was at the late end of the 42 championship bouts. But the good thing was that all eight mats were still out there and those finals were going to go quickly, so no one had to wait too long. I could see the determination on his face. He knew if he wanted this state title, he was going to have to get by the toughest competitor he would face all year. Eric Flinchum of Crestview was a tactician, a master of moves and if Duck got caught, it could be "Goodnight, Gracie."

The time was now -- it was just before 8 p.m. Neither Flinchum or Duck gave in to the other. But the big move of the match came in the second period when Flinchum decided to take the bottom position. He got a big reverse for two points and those two points proved to be the difference in the end as he was not going to allow Duck to put him in a uncompromising position, playing defense the rest of the way. Flinchum came away with the 4-2 victory. And the look of bitter disappointment was still on Duck's face long after the match was over. His wrestling career was over and two points separated him from the gold medal he was battling for all year.

Key West High's day and night were over. There would be no gold medals, but a second, third and fifth was not a bad way to end the night. Still, the thing that made Bowe most proud -- in the final team total, Key West High finished in fifth place with 46 points, just one point behind Pensacola Christian, who took fourth.

Fifth place for little Key West High, a third-year program that had grown up in front of my eyes, the same way another fledgling program I remember back in the early 1980s called Brick Memorial High School in New Jersey took off. There were no championships, but fifth place? Hey, it was a reason to celebrate.

The team had planned to stay in Lakeland through Sunday morning before returning back to Key West, so they were going out to an area bowling alley for midnight bowling. They invited me to come, but my battery was literally near empty and I still had a story to write, so I politely declined. But Cody Granger's mom wanted me to take a picture with the three guys who won medals of some kind that day along with Troy and Randy/"Sid." I was hesitant about it, but then decided, "Why not?" This was just another part of the time capsule called my career. They were on their way to what they were doing and I was on my way in my new car back to the Ledger to write the story of the day/night.

Another hour on their computers and once Jen said she got the story, all was fan-flippin'-tastic. She said she had everything under control. It was about 10 p.m. and I was hungry. I found the Days Inn (which doesn't exist anymore, it's under another name) that I was going to stay in overnight. Right down the road was a Steak and Shake. I remember getting a hamburger, fries and a soda, then returning to the hotel to finally check in. It was about 11:15 and worse, the temperature had gotten into the mid-40s ... and I was still in a short-sleeved shirt without a jacket. All I kept wanting the person at the front desk to do was confirm my credit card, give me my key and let me get into the room.

That took almost five minutes. They wanted my license plate, which, of course, I couldn't remember verbatim, even to this day. I eventually got the key, got my bag, turned on the heat in the room, turned the TV on, and passed out. I had told the guy at the front desk I did not want room service -- and to not be bothered.

I collapsed in my bed sometime around midnight and didn't wake up until 2 p.m. on Sunday. Wow, was it wonderful sleep indeed. I didn't normally work on Sunday and Monday, so I took it easy in the hotel room that day and night, even if the temperatures didn't get any higher than about 52 degrees. The highlight of my Sunday night was watching the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. By Monday morning, I was out the door and on my way to Marcia and Jim's place in Stuart in the new car. I stayed there overnight and wrote my preview of Key West's boys basketball state tournament game against Pope John Paul II High at their place. On Tuesday, February 26, I saw Key West beat John Paul II to advance to the regional final. I went to one of the local Kinko's to use the computer to write my story. When it was done, I finally headed down I-95 back to US-1 and back to Key West.

The car survived the 740-mile venture. And when Key West beat host Monsignor Pace of Miami in the Region 4-4A basketball final on Saturday, March 1, a game I couldn't go to in person because the executive sports editor thought it was a terrific idea to send the one other person in my department to some newspaper convention in Miami, I was heading back to Lakeland on March 7 and 9 for the state Final Four in 4A.

All totaled, my car had tallied close to 2,000 miles in the first month I owned it. Nobody I know takes a car or a motorcycle out and says, "I think I'll break it in by driving from Florida to New York state and back." That was basically what I did with the car.

And 11 years later, the car is still with me, though I seriously think 2013 may be the last year I have it. It has done me plenty of good, and easily the best car I've ever owned. It has taken 15 trips up from Florida to New Jersey and back. It turned over at 100,000 miles on my way to cover a boys basketball game at Baker County High School in a Christmas tournament on December 30, 2005. And it went over 200,000 miles on my way to cover another boys basketball game on March 4, 2011.

On the ride to 200,000 miles, I was on my way to cover the Palatka High School boys basketball team's FHSAA 4A Final Four semifinal against Cardinal Gibbons of Fort Lauderdale -- at the Lakeland Center. Oh, the irony!

I've taken plenty of rides with that car. But you always remember the first -- and breaking the car in with a 350-mile, one-way trip to watch a group of wrestlers try to finish something they started two years earlier ... that was a heck of a way to break in a new car.

The night Lacey's wrestlers -- and Don Burstein -- made their mark

Admittedly, I didn't mind covering my share of high school wrestling early on in my career.

I may not have been well-versed on the sport, but I knew who the main players were when it came to the Shore Conference in the mid-1980s. It also didn't hurt that our wrestling writer, John Earle Livingston, lived, ate and drank this stuff. A former wrestler himself at Toms River North in the early 1970s, Earle could not only tell you about each team in Ocean County, but he could also tell you each starting wrestler's strengths and weaknesses.

It may have bordered on overzealous and irritating, but when you get near a fountain of knowledge like an Earle Livingston, you try to get as much from the fountain as possible.

And so it was the third week of February every year that the Shore Conference Tournament is seeded and takes place in two days -- on Wednesday, the first round and quarterfinals are held at the four highest-seeded team's gym and then there is a neutral site for the semifinals and championship, which just so happened to be held this particular year at top-seeded Brick Memorial.

When the tournament was seeded that Monday night, the four host sites for the first round would be No. 1 Brick Memorial, in the middle of a state championship season, No. 2 and Memorial rival Toms River East, No. 3 Point Pleasant Boro, enjoying an unbeaten season, and the fourth seed Manalapan. Since only No. 13 seed Central Regional was the only county team in Manalapan, we just asked the coach of Central's program at the time to call in the scores, knowing they were going to have it handed to them by the host Braves.

That left three other sites to be covered. Earle was going to Memorial to see the Mustangs in the middle of their amazing season. My memory fails me on who was covering the action at Toms River East and our assistant sports editor, Greg, was to cover the matches at Point Boro, all happening on this Wednesday.

Well, unfortunately, a funny thing happened the day after the seeding meeting -- it snowed and it snowed a lot. It snowed enough to cancel the wrestling on Wednesday, pushing the first two rounds to Thursday at the same sites. This, unfortunately, caused a problem. Greg only worked Saturdays through Wednesdays with Thursday and Friday off, so he was out.

That led to the only person in the sports department who could come through in the clutch to cover wrestling when need be.

Yup ... here I am. Just tell me what I need to know and where to go.

And so on Thursday, February 20, 1986, I hopped into my car and headed to the little sardine can that was Point Pleasant Boro High School's gymnasium. If you've ever been to Point Boro, you know that bandboxes don't even compare to this place. You are practically right on top of the action. And by the time I arrived at Point Boro, the place was already packed for the first-round matches which I didn't have to attend, but needed to get the results of. The 8-0 Panthers improved to 9-0 with a 33-25 win over No. 14 seed Monsignor Donovan, a match the Panthers had to pull out with three victories in the last four weight classes. On the other mat set up in this small gym, No. 6 Lacey was taking care of its business against No. 11 Rumson, 48-12, in a complete mismatch.

The 1980s wrestling Panthers were well-known at the Shore area. Their coach was a dominant figure in the program in Ed Gilmore. Gilmore and Jim Hoffmaster, one of the best assistant coaches to ever be a part of a program as a former state champion in Pennsylvania, got the most out of these young men. Hoffmaster's son, Mike, was a dominant 122-pounder. Brett Hill at 115 pounds was a talent, as was Bill Hill at 135 pounds, Dave Nase at 141, Dan Bennett at 158 pounds and the standout of the team, Dan Transue, at 188. The Panthers were loaded from top to bottom and it was no wonder why they were unbeaten.

But this Lacey team was having its best season in its five-year history as a program. Lacey didn't have the same amount of studs as Point Boro, but had kids with smarts. Steve Cassarino was a fantastic table-setter at 101 pounds. And Vinnie Cassarino, Steve's brother, could keep it going at 108. Chris Giglio was a battler at 122 pounds, as was Don Schultze at 141. Chris Suspie and Kevin Mueller could bring the noise and the funk at 148 and 158 pounds, respectively. But Lacey's hammer was at 171 pounds in standout Matt Opacity, a very technically sound wrestler who had carved out a superb junior season for himself.

The leader of this team though was its boisterous head coach, it's mercurial boss who wasn't afraid to speak his mind and let others know. He was a man I barely knew from his umpire work in both baseball and softball.

By the end of the night, I knew who Don Burstein was, long before I got to know him even better when he became the longtime president of  the Beachwood-Pine Beach Little League and his sons would play baseball for Ken Frank at Toms River High School South in the 1990s.

The sound in this small gymnasium could easily bounce off walls with a packed house. The introductions by Steve Ferrullo, Point Boro's softball and boys soccer coach, could barely be heard. But the show went on.

Up first was Steve Cassarino at 101 pounds for Lacey against Dan Gilmore, the coach's son. I figured the coach's son could keep it a close match and this would be the springboard to a great night of quarterfinal-round wrestling.

Nope. Cassarino ran up and down Gilmore until scoring a 15-5 major decision to give the Lions a 4-0 lead. Now the other Cassarino was up against Sam Ferraro at 108 pounds. If the first brother was dominant, you know the one up now had to make a bigger impression. And he did, pinning Ferraro in 1:52, making it a 10-0 lead.

Now I was told by Earle to expect this early on. So the Lacey lead was not a surprise. Boro would get stronger as the match would go on. But at 115, Lacey's Bill Marsh gave Brett Hill everything he could handle before Hill came away with the 4-2 win, cutting the lead to 10-3. Mike Hoffmaster was next and he coolly and calmly worked over Nick Zebrowski, but could not get him on his back, settling for the 12-2 major decision as the lead got cut to 10-7.

I believe the Panther fans -- and maybe Earle -- were expecting pins at those two weight classes to take the lead back. But Lacey still had the lead and I can still see Burstein with each individual wrestler coming out, telling his young men to work whatever they could out there and make each Point Boro wrestler work hard for every point they were to get.

At 129 pounds, Lacey's Giglio was next against a fairly good wrestler in George Maiorano. The two battled, but Giglio was able to grab a point on getting out of Maiorano's hold of him on the bottom, then score a takedown to collect a 4-2 win as the lead went up to 13-7 for the Lions. But Bill Hill got four points back by working over Dan McFall in a 10-1 major decision at 135 that made it 13-11, setting up the big match of the night at 141 pounds between Lacey's Schultze and Point Boro's Nase.

The match started with both Schultze and Nase feeling out one another for the first 45 seconds. Then like a panther himself, Nase sprung out at Schultze and caught him. Schultze tried to fight his way out of the hold for a few seconds, but Nase was not having any of it. Now Nase was in definite command of what he was going to do and he could have easily put Schultze down to the ground to get the two points and then work back points from there. Of the two wrestlers, Nase was better.

But Nase decided on a whooooooole different approach that would ultimately turn the match around. He picked Schultze up and practically slammed him, stomach and face first, into the mat. Schultze didn't move. The referees gave Schultz a penalty point for a slam. And still Schultze could not move.

Suddenly, the once-loud gymnasium was in silence. Nase was being apologetic to his opponent, but he was still not getting up. And I was getting concerned. For the first five or so minutes, I thought Schultze had been paralyzed. I could see concern on the Lacey side of the bleachers. I even saw some of the moms and girls begin tearing up.

This was really bad. They had to call out for the ambulance to come to the school and care for the Lacey wrestler, who still wasn't moving much from the spot he got slammed. By this point, the officials had called the match over and awarded the Lions six very valuable points, making it 19-11.

It was as if the entire gymnasium's air was let out. Boro wrestlers who were expected to dominate were not doing so. And now what should have been a Boro victory behind Nase was a sudden kick to the stomach. Burstein said after the match he heard the doctor say he thought Schultze's ribs were puncturing parts of his body. When anyone hears that, it's not a good thing.

He was sent over to nearby Point Pleasant hospital after a half-hour delay. He ended up having two broken ribs and his season was all but over. And while Lacey fans were still emotional and Lions wrestlers were still stunned somewhat, the show had to go on. At 148 pounds came Boro's Brett Campbell against Suspie. And it was a war with neither wrestler giving in to the other. In the end, Campbell had prevailed, 5-4, and had given the Panthers three points, cutting the lead to 19-14.

Next at 158 pounds was a match that should've been a slam dunk for the Panthers. Twice during the season, Bennett had beaten Mueller. So this should've been more of the same. At least that's what Earle had warned me about.

Nope. Mueller worked Bennett over and under and inside out. It was as if a shadow of Bennett's self was there on that mat because Mueller was having his way. The Lion grappler ended up winning, 12-3, giving Lacey four points and a 23-14 lead with only three matches left and in the first of those matches, Lacey had its best wrestler up.

Opacity lived up to his nickname "Hammer" by putting Mike Boyd through one dizzying tilt after another. The poor kid never had a chance and Opacity was making him pay like he stole something from him. Finally, in the third period, "Hammer" put the hammer down and wrapped Boyd up in one big cradle.

When the referee slapped the mat with 58 seconds to go in the final period, the Lions had their breakthrough victory. Lacey was the class of Class C South wrestling, the smallest classification in the Shore Conference. For as great a season as Burstein's Lions were having, they needed that one win to designate that they were one of the best teams at the Shore.

This was it. And an excitable Burstein caught Opacity as he jumped into his coach's arms, knowing the 29-14 lead was now insurmountable. Through the loudness of Lacey's side, Burstein let out a blood-curdling yell that either infuriated Panthers fans or frightened them. Burstein was on a high as a coach and he really didn't care what anyone thought.

And that was proven in the next match when Point Boro's Transue pinned Lou Copio in 73 seconds and Transue was so angry at Burstein and the Lacey people that after he got the victory, he flipped the Lacey coach the bird.

Yes, he flipped him the bird. That cost the Panthers a team point, not that it mattered at this point.

When Clint Allgair pinned Bobby Trainor at heavyweight, the Lions had finished out a resounding 35-19 win and had gained respect from all those who were there in that Boro gymnasium that February night.

"This win proved we could beat a bigger school than us," Burstein said afterward. The Lions improved to a pretty nice 13-1, but more importantly, they were heading to Brick Memorial and the SCT semifinals and a date with Toms River East. "The win proved we are one of the four best wrestling teams in the Shore area."

In a year in which Brick Memorial was on its way to not only a state championship, but the No. 1 ranking in the state, and Toms River East was still good, Burstein had no dreams of grandeur for his kids.

"We're not looking to win everything," he said to me afterward. "We're just happy to be here."

I couldn't help but root for the Lions to at least make the final that Saturday night. And two days later, the Lions gave Warren Reid's Raiders everything they could handle before ultimately falling, 34-26. And, unfortunately, Burstein was not brought back the next year as Lacey's coach.

The program continued to build for years to come. And I got to know Burstein as one of my favorite Little League presidents at Beachwood-Pine Beach. He could be a little gruff, but if you were honest and your intentions and heart were in the right place, he liked you a lot. I know he liked me a lot. Anything I ever asked for during my Little League coverage years, he got for me.

His oldest son, Jeff, was a standout pitcher for coach Frank's 1994 NJSIAA Group III champion South team, clinching the championship game on the mound. Sadly, Jeff had his life taken away by a driver who was under the influence of drugs one late July night in 2001 at the age of 25. I believe Don Burstein never recovered from the loss of his son. He passed away a year or so later.

I can honestly say Don Burstein was one of my favorite people. I miss him a whole bunch. And for the dozens and dozens of times I dealt with that man in my 15 years at the Observer, my all-time favorite memory was that loud and crazy night in February 1986 at Point Pleasant Boro High School when his rag-tag Lacey Lion wrestlers tamed a bunch of experienced Panthers.

Admittedly, I didn't mind being there to cover that event at all.

The make-or-break first year with the make-or-break championship match

My first winter of covering soccer in Florida came in the 1999-2000 season in the Florida Keys. And it was a good winter, too.

There was the Key West High boys soccer team of coach John Pierzchala, a veteran club that had been cut short in the previous two district tournament championship matches against Cardinal Gibbons High of Fort Lauderdale.

There was the great story of the young ladies at Coral Shores High School in the Upper Keys led by head coach Diane Powers Wischmeier, a small, but fiery redhead whose Hurricanes were having a breakout season.

And then there was the tumultuous first season of new coach Scott Paul and the Key West High girls soccer team. The Ohio native had a very talented team, but he ran into one very big problem -- he was replacing a very popular coach named Tim Conrad, whose 1998-99 Key West team won a district championship and big things were expected under the new coach.

Except the new coach was not as "friendly" as the previous guy was. And this was causing major issues. The team was losing matches it probably should have won to start the season. But everything came to a head during the 1999 holiday season. The Conchs were playing in a tournament in the Fort Myers area and not only did they lose all their matches, Paul was angry because some players either didn't show up physically or were there physically but weren't taking the tournament all that seriously.

It was right after the tournament had wound up and the team was back in Key West that I made a phone call to Paul. It was Monday, January 3, 2000. I was the only one working full-time in the sports department after my so-called "assistant" decided to move to another branch of our newspaper to work for them because he didn't like the fact that I took the sports editor's job he wanted away from him the previous summer and he just simply didn't like me. So I toughed it out by my lonesome until further notice.

When I got Paul, I asked him how he did. He had told me the tournament was a disaster and he gave me the scores. But then he went one step further ... he had written a statement that he wanted me to copy verbatim into the newspaper so he could get the message across.

Now, I knew this was professional suicide, mainly for him and his burgeoning coaching career in the Southernmost City. What little I knew about this back-stabbing little town was that you didn't talk down and you didn't turn your back on the knife-wielders. Personally, I couldn't have given two craps about the repercussions as far as putting it into the paper was concerned. But I did care about what he was telling me.

By the third sentence, I told my new friend to stop. I wanted him to take a step back in knowing what it was he was doing and saying and what kind of effect it was going to have on not just his program, but the school and perhaps this little town. I said to him, "I have highlight and delete buttons. We can stop this if you'd like and pretend nothing happened."

He respected me for what I was telling him. But he wasn't going to be stopped.

"No," he said. "I'm going on, brother."

And so he did. It was about seven or eight sentences long, but it made for a nice, little tidy paragraph basically pummeling the malcontents on the team who were dragging this club down. He basically put it out there of "it's my way or the highway." Needless to say, Paul got the attention of those he felt were underachievers and yes, he lost at least two or three girls on the team, at least two of which were seniors who were still devoted to the old regime and the more laid-back approach.

This was not how Scott Paul was going to run things at Key West High School along with partner in crime Tony Chiello -- not necessarily with an iron fist, but an understanding that if they were going to win and be successful, they were going to have to adhere to what he and Chiello were teaching them and having to work uber-hard to get to their goals.

Scott Paul could have lost the team that January 4, 2000. To most observers -- including my former assistant, who went on the sports radio talk show to tell the host that he thought Paul was insane in not so many words to call his players out like he did -- this should have been the end.

But a funny thing happened soon after that -- the Conchs came together. And the team began to win.

And so they got to the District 16-2A tournament less than a month later and won their semifinal battle with tough Cardinal Gibbons to get to the championship, which was slated for Friday, February 4, 2000, a month after the Paul "statement" that may have lost the team. Because we had no Saturday paper at the time, this gave me a chance to plan out what kind of soccer coverage we were going to have that day. I had the Key West boys and Coral Shores girls playing for district titles, too.

So two days in advance, I had contacted a young man named Shane Liddick, who was on loan from the news department until I got a full-time assistant, to go over to Tommy Roberts Stadium to cover Key West's boys district championship that night with Cardinal Gibbons. I called up Wischmeier to tell her there was an outside shot I may swing by to where she was at Palmer Trinity in the south part of Miami to see her Hurricanes play in the District 16-1A final against host Palmer.

That left me to go to Miami to cover Key West's girls battle with host Gulliver Prep, the current bully of that district and the top seed. Over the 2 1/2 years I worked in Key West, I grew familiar with the trip to 88th Street and a right turn off US-1 that took me to Gulliver Prep.

It was on this particular Friday my girlfriend was off from her dental hygienist job in her Big Pine Key office, so we planned a day where we would get up at about 9 in the morning and head north by noon to make it to Gulliver Prep for a 4 p.m. game. We gave ourselves plenty of time to stop for gas, pick up any small breakfast-like food along the way and just let her sit back and enjoy the beauty of the Keys on the Overseas Highway heading to Florida City with the sun roof open in my 1993 Ford Thunderbird LX, still the most beautiful car I ever owned.

We got to Gulliver by about 3:30 in the afternoon after shooting straight up US-1 into south Miami, then making that right turn onto SE 88th and going a couple of miles until seeing the school on the left side. She and I had a little bit of a walk from the parking lot to going around the building until getting to the field in the back of the school, but already, there was a nice crowd of fans assembled, mostly for the home Raiders, who like Paul were coached by a first-year mentor named Joe Maurer.

Key West had yet to beat Gulliver in two games this season, but Paul went in feeling very optimistic that his team had come together at the right time and now in this final, it would culminate in a championship. My girlfriend didn't mind sitting in the bleachers while I covered this game, walking the other side of the field where the two teams were assembled.

From the opening whistle, I knew this was going to be a "first-goal wins" kind of battle. The Conchs had some key players in their midfield and defense like Diane Herlihy and Mary Meyer, but their defensive stopper was senior goalkeeper Keia Hughes, who was recruited to play the goal even though she stood all 5-foot-2. But let me tell you something: She got the most out of her height and abilities.

Gulliver had the better of the play in regulation time and in a number of cases, the Raiders may have gotten on the scoreboard, but Meyer was there to sweep away any problems in the back and Hughes was there to make one timely save after another, some diving stops to keep the game scoreless.

To Gulliver girls, it was slowly becoming a frustrating afternoon on their own field. I felt they believed they could just walk onto their field and handle their business against the Conchs, not that I thought they looked completely down on the them, but they had that air about them that nobody was going to beat them.

Eighty minutes came and 80 minutes went with neither team scoring. This meant that the game would have to go to 10-minute overtime periods. Those had to be played out unlike today's rule that allows for a "golden goal" to end a game in overtime. So two 10-minute periods came and went like the 80 regulation minutes. Still nothing ... well, except a fiery Italian in Chiello walking away from a possible red card because he got frustrated with the lack of calls that were being made against the more physical Raiders. Word had it that he just left and walked around Gulliver's campus while the rest of the game went on. I'm sure Paul might have needed him somewhere, but the way this game was going, it didn't matter.

The game went into third and fourth five-minute "sudden-death" overtime periods. The first goal here would win the game. But Key West's defense and midfield wasn't going to allow Gulliver to get anywhere near the Conchs' box and the same went for the Gulliver defense.

So after 110 minutes of soccer and the sun starting to go down in the beautiful blue south Miami sky, this classic of a championship was going to be decided by the dreaded penalty kicks. Neither Maurer or Paul was happy with this. Both coaches agreed afterward they would've played all night to get a winner on the field, though Maurer wasn't going to be as agreeable after the end result.

I can still see the process that Paul was going through with his players on who was going to take what kick. That took about five minutes for him to decide. When the officials had their lists of who was kicking when, both teams' players assembled in separate groups on the east side of the field, all eyes fixated on this end.

Was this going to be the story of a lifetime that I was about to write -- how a coach read his players the riot act exactly one month earlier, then watched as his regrouped girls took home a district championship from the big, bad Raiders of Gulliver Prep? That scenario was rolling around in my head, but I needed a finishing plot in what would be a 12-yard scenic panorama. Gulliver won the toss and elected to kick first against Hughes.

So up stepped top offensive player Jackie Garcia. Garcia signaled she was ready. So did Hughes. Garcia ran on to the ball and booted her shot to Hughes' right. Keia Hughes guessed right, getting her big paw on the ball and knocking it away.

Key West players and fans were cheering loudly. They had stuck the first dagger in the Raiders' hopes.

Up next for Key West was Amber Rivas, a sure-footed scorer. She sized up goalie Megan Rivera and once the official whistled her to go, she raced up to the ball and put her shot to Rivera's left side. Once again, though, a goalie guessed correctly and Rivera punched the shot away.

Now it was Gulliver players' and fans' turns to squeal in pleasure. Next was midfielder Emily Schweim. She got the go-ahead from the official and laced a shot that eluded Hughes to her right and high and into the net, a Gulliver player finally taking advantage of Hughes' height, to make it 1-0.

Up now was Jessica Eden for Key West, a young player with a lot of potential. She stepped up and like a veteran, delivered a kick that Rivera guessed correctly on going left, but the power of the shot was not enough to knock it away. It trickled into the net to tie it up at 1-1.

New life with three kicks left to go. Next was talented Gulliver sweeper Jillian Papa. She, like Schweim, was looking to go high on Hughes, but had too much mustard on the shot -- it sailed over the crossbar. Key West folks were in joy, but it was still tied up. The Conchs needed to take the lead.

Up next was Meyer. Meyer had a devastating foot and a keen sense for clearing a ball. Now she was being tested in one-on-ones with the goalie. She sized up her attempt and decided to go left of Rivera like Eden did. But her shot was surprisingly too far of the mark and it stayed at 1-1.

As the darkness was beginning to approach, I did catch an eye on my girlfriend, who even from a distance I could see was really into this sports drama, even if she wasn't completely into sports and only took an interest because I was into sports and had made that my profession.

For the fourth round, Gulliver chose midfielder Stephanie Gilewicz. She didn't decide to go wide or really high on Hughes. She chose a route that no goalie could ever anticipate a shooter going -- she shot straight ahead and a bit high at Hughes. The goalie was fooled by the shot, but was able to get a glove on it. However, the force of the shot was too much for Hughes' left hand to take and the ball found the back of the net for a 2-1 lead.

Hughes would say to me afterward, "The thing that frustrates me is I read it. You're taught on penalty kicks it's a 50-50 chance of guessing right. And usually, you dive one way or another. I read that it was going high and I guessed right, but the ball still slipped by me."

Next up was stopper Marina Burton, a fairly accurate kicker who Paul was now counting on to equalize this  match again. She, too, went to Rivera's left, but the goalie had figured out the pattern by now of which way the Conch kickers were aiming. She dove to her left and knocked the ball away, leaving Burton dejected going back to her teammates' small circle away from the action and keeping it at 2-1.

Now it was up to Monica Ortega to finish this out. If she nailed the kick, there would be no need for Key West to go. Ortega calmly set the ball down on its mark and waited for the go-ahead from the official. She ran up to the ball pretending it was going to be a rope, but she decided to chip it and fool Hughes. The only person that was fooled was Ortega as the chip shot floated over the crossbar, keeping it at 2-1 with one kicker left.

That last kicker was sophomore Katie Gonzalez. In my short time at the Citizen, she was one of my favorite athletes there and a standout in cross-country. But she loved soccer and now, Paul was asking her to keep this match going. So Gonzalez set up the ball on its mark and took a look at Rivera and where she was heading. The official asked if she was ready. Then the official asked if Rivera was ready. When they both agreed they were ready, the whistle sounded.

I can still see the shot as clear as day. Gonzalez -- like almost every other kicker before her -- went left of Rivera. This time, though, the goalie never had to make a save. The shot sailed wide of the mark and harmlessly off the field.

And there was the still photograph in my memory forever -- in the background, the Gulliver players running toward and jumping on Rivera, while in the foreground, Katie Gonzalez is on the ground in a crouched position, hands over her eyes filled with tears after her failure to keep the match going on.

I, too, felt horrible for Katie Gonzalez.

Gulliver Prep had won the district championship. And Key West players were left in tears, no one taking it harder than the 5-foot-2 dynamo Hughes, who had stretched herself to the limits all afternoon in keeping her Conchs in the game until one penalty kick too many found the back of the net.

For Scott Paul, it was numbing in how it ended. Like a first-time jilted lover, Paul was left having to pick up the pieces of a defeat that was cruel and unfair in most soccer circles.

"Penalty kicks are no way to decide games," he said. "Penalty kicks have nothing to do with the system of soccer, they have nothing to do with the fitness of players and they have nothing to do with the team concept. I don't care if we played all night. I just think the game should have been decided on the field."

In a perfect world, Scott Paul would've been correct. But soccer never allows for that perfect world to exist. Ultimately, those who run soccer decide that an ending has to come and those dreaded penalty kicks are the way those games come to an end.

It was almost a quarter to 7 and nearly dark when I found my lady and she and I headed back to the Southernmost City. We stopped to eat at the Golden Corral in Homestead before making the trip back. For the hour we spent that night at the restaurant, we talked about a number of things, but we talked about what we had witnessed from opposite sides of the field.

"That game was so amazing," she said, me knowing that she really didn't understand all the nuances of soccer, but knew she saw a great match. "Those girls were incredible out there." Then she told me she saw a teary-eyed Hughes and told her she played great that day.

I openly admit I never have been high-spirited when it came to taking the girlfriends of my life to sporting events, simply because I knew most of them really weren't into sports. But on occasion, I got lucky enough to take them somewhere that would always leave a positive impression in their minds. We ultimately got home after 11:30 p.m. and the next day, I went to work to write up what I had witnessed the day before and to lay out the paper. And I also found out that both the Key West boys and Coral Shores girls had won their district championships on that Friday, so the weekend was far from a loss at all.

But I look back on that Friday, February 4, 2000. And I think about the setback of the Key West High girls soccer team and though it was a sad ending, it only laid the foundation for what was about to become a prosperous run as head coach for Scott Paul. That 1999-2000 Key West team would ultimately finish the season at 14-8-5. By 2003, the Conchs were winning district championships and every year that Paul was head coach from 2000-2011, the team made the state tournament. In 2005, Key West made it to the regional final in Class 3A before falling to American Heritage of Plantation. And in all 14 of Paul's seasons in charge of the program, the Conchs have had at least a .500 record.

That first year, though, was a make-or-break year to say the least. Looking back on it, it helped strengthen a program that needed a direction toward great things happening.

I could have told Paul he could stop and we'd never have that conversation three days into the new millennium. And that tough loss one month later only helped guide the program to a great decade to come.

In that regard, I'm glad I was there at the start.

The terrible end to Kim Babiak's basketball career

As a full-time student at Monmouth College and having to work nights, let's say the degree of difficulty in accomplishing anything in my life was fairly high. Add a girlfriend in there who didn't have a license to drive at the time, and yeah, things certainly were challenging in the fall of 1986 and winter/spring 1987.

But I did like the idea of making money like any other 20-year-old at the time and I took on assignments to cover in Ocean County to get my foot through the door at another newspaper ... or so I thought back in 1987.

This included covering Friday night basketball when we didn't publish on Saturdays at the Observer. And so on Friday night, January 30, 1987, I was asked by my boss to cover a big Shore Conference Class A South girls basketball game between Toms River South and Southern Regional at South, right around the corner from the newspaper building. My last class of the day on Fridays ended around 3 p.m. during that time, so that didn't bother me at all.

For one thing, I handled all the statistics for girls and boys basketball. This was right up my alley since I knew who the players were on all the teams and I got to see them up close. And in this particular case, the Rams of Southern Regional coach Kathy Leslie came in with an 11-4 record overall and 5-2 in the division, trying to catch up to division leader Lakewood. South, meanwhile, was very formidable at 8-2 overall and 5-1 in the division, also chasing after Lakewood in Class A South. So for now, the battle was for either South to maintain second place in the division or for Southern to force South into a two-way tie in second at the time.

Southern Regional had good players on its team like senior all-everything guard Michelle Jones, scrappy junior forward Patti Caufield, sophomore standout guard Mary Tantillo and solid junior center Charity Smead, a standout in track and field as well. Southern was good. The Indians of second-year coach Barbara Hughes was loaded with talent, too, starting with senior center Toni-Marie Izzie and junior forward Chris Maloney.

But their star player was a senior guard named Kim Babiak. If not for Lakewood's incredible Carol Walters, Babiak would have been the best senior female athlete in the county that year. She was a four-year All-County first-team standout on the tennis court at No. 1 singles and was a dynamite role player for the previous two seasons on the basketball team for Hughes and before her, the late Bill Dougherty. And she was a sensational sprinter and hurdler in track and field. But in her junior year, she left track and field and tried out for coach Jim Christiano's softball team. Not only did she make the team, she patrolled center field and stole 37 bases in 37 attempts -- no one threw her out! And her bat and speed helped the Indians reach the finals of both the Ocean County and Shore Conference tournaments as well as a share of the Class A South title with an overall record of 24-6.

And as I kidded her while she was in high school, I told her it was amazing that she found the time to be the female lead in the Honeydrippers' video for the song "Sea Of Love" because if you remember seeing the video or even view it on YouTube, she looked very much like the young lady in the video. Of course it wasn't her, but she was a spitting image.

I totally thought the world of Kim Babiak. She was a great young lady from a great family. Her mom, Geri, was a sweetheart and her dad, Bob, was a terrific guy. Her older brother, Bobby, another super guy, I got to know as a South football and track standout and then again when he was coaching track at Toms River North in the 1990s.

Babiak was averaging 18.8 points a game in 10 games and a big reason why South and Hughes, also the school's field hockey coach in the fall, did not have to worry about the outside game or handling the ball for that matter.

So as I came into South's gym, I got my spot at the scorer's table, wrote down the lineups for both teams, chatted for a moment with both Hughes and Leslie, and said hello to the people I knew fairly well, which would be Izzie and Babiak. All seemed right for the moment.

Southern Regional teams under Leslie were best known for their defensive prowess. Whether they had the best talent in the county or not, she always stressed defense as a major part of her team. In other words, if you couldn't play defense for Leslie, chances were you weren't playing for Southern Regional at all.

So imagine Leslie's surprise as Izzie won the tip from Smead, Babiak got the ball and drove right to the basket for the game's first two points.

Already, the yelling started from Southern's sideline.

"Michelle Jooooooones!! You are supposed to pick her up!! Where's the rest of you to help out?!"

It didn't take long for the Rams to answer. Jones hit on a layup to tie it at 2-2, then after a South miss, Caufield got the ball from Jones and delivered a basket from in close to make it 4-2. Another South miss and Southern had the ball back, but a pass by Jones was deflected and picked up by Babiak for the steal.

This is where everything changed for South in the game and their season -- and Babiak's basketball career.

As she took the ball down the floor for what seemed to be an uncontested layup, Smead raced down the court as fast as she could to try to catch up with Babiak. I can still see Babiak being grabbed from behind by Smead -- not viciously by any means -- but as Smead got her, she turned Babiak around as the South guard threw up a wild shot.

That's when it happened. It wasn't clear enough, but when you started to hear wails of pain, you knew it wasn't good. To brace her fall from Smead's foul from behind, Babiak put her right arm out.

It snapped. The wrist was broken. And for the next five to 10 minutes, the game was delayed as South trainer Debbie Morante had to come out to tend to a shaken and crying Babiak. And worse, when her good friend and longtime teammate Izzie came over to see what was going on, she became so shaken she started to weep openly. This moment was an absolute hot mess.

I always said the person who really should have been crying at that moment was junior Karen Schuler, who was now going to have to be the full-time point guard of the team and with the knowledge she was not going to contribute nearly 20 points a game.

As Babiak was taken off the court for what would be the last time in her high school basketball career, heading over to nearby Community Memorial Hospital, I knew -- and I think Hughes and South fans knew -- that South's season was not going to be the same. Babiak was the engine that ran this automobile and without her, South didn't really stand a chance.

There was an emptiness within that South gymnasium for that moment and for the rest of that game for that matter. And I remember there was a sudden heaviness ... not of hatred, but a slight bit of anger ... toward Smead, who was only trying to do her job at that moment, but in her clumsy way of doing it, had just put a damper on South's season. I could feel it in the gym for the rest of the night, especially after Schuler came in and missed both free throws.

The game went on from there and that bit of anger grew even more as Southern went on a 13-0 run to make it 17-2 in the first quarter with Jones taking advantage of not having Babiak all over her like white on rice with eight points in the run. South stopped the run by putting a full-court pressure on Jones and Tantillo and went on an 8-0 run to make it 17-10.

Sadly, that would be the closest South would get from there. Leslie made the adjustments for her young ladies and by the third quarter, the game got out of hand. By the end of the game, Southern had put the finishing touches on a 66-40 rout. By far, the rest of the game was very unmemorable. Jones had 22 points, most of which came on long-range jumpers, while Smead had 14 points and eight rebounds and Caufield had six points and seven rebounds. Reserve Kristen Stohrer added eight points off the bench.

Maloney ended up leading South with 14 points, while Izzie had 10 points and Schuler had six points after stepping in for Babiak.

But all that was trivial. Broken wrists don't heal that quickly and not only was Hughes having to face the reality she didn't have her superstar guard for the rest of the season, but Christiano was not going to have his centerfielder for her senior softball season. Without her that spring, South had a good season, but certainly could have had a better season. The Indians went to the OCT semifinals that spring and who knows if Babiak were in the lineup how well they may have done against Lacey in a 13-12 loss.

Meanwhile, Hughes and her Indians had to move on from this particular game. Unfortunately, they had to move on to a date the very next night at Lakewood ... and it didn't go so well. Lakewood was in the middle of a second state South Jersey Group III title in three years and blew out the Indians. To add insult to already hard-luck injury, Walters scored her 1,000th career point in that game.

Babiak would eventually return to track and field and have a successful season with a pair of wins in the county meet that spring. She would go on to play tennis at the Jacksonville University and graduate with a degree in marketing. In 1996, she was working for the American Hockey League team in Baltimore and she let my dad and I into the old Civic Center in downtown Baltimore to see the place that the old Baltimore Bullets played basketball back in the day while we were down for an Orioles game the night before. It was good to see her. Shortly after she showed us around that morning, she got the call to work with the marketing department with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Ultimately, she got to do the same thing, but this time head the department, with the Houston Texans franchise as they were getting of the ground. And we were in contact my first couple of years with the Palatka Daily News since I got to cover the Jacksonville Jaguars in the same AFC South division and asked her if she ever came back to Jacksonville. She said she really didn't really travel with the team, but in January 2004, she got to help out the NFL with whatever the league asked her to do in preparing Reliant Stadium for Super Bowl XXXVIII when the New England Patriots beat the Carolina Panthers.

The next year, it was Jacksonville who got to host the big game and to do a column on what a franchise or a city had to get done to make a city presentable for a Super Bowl, I called up the one person with experience who can tell me what does happen. Now Kim Phillips, she answered the phone and gave me 45 minutes of wonderful time. It was a good conversation as we caught up on what was going on. She had not given me any indication that she was leaving the Texans, but she did.

And that conversation in early February 2005 was the last time I talked with Kim Babiak Phillips. I'm sure a lot has happened in eight years, but I do miss her. She may not have been the best athlete I ever covered, but she certainly was one of my favorite people I got to know in these 28 years.

She was worth the time and effort to go see play and cover ... even with a busy schedule to manage.

The basketball game that may have cured what ailed me

There are times that fish made in restaurants and I didn't get along. I stick now to the occasional visit to McDonald's for a fish fillet sandwich or Arthur Treacher's Fish & Chips if there are any within a reasonable distance or good ol' Red Lobster. None of them have done me wrong over the years.

These days, I make my own fish meals, usually a good grilled salmon or simple tuna fish from a can. I still love clams and scallops and won't ever deny myself shrimp of almost any kind.

But back in my "reckless" days, any fish was not off limits to me. I was a fan of the old all-you-can-eat clam strips meal at Howard Johnson's restaurant. And I used to enjoy going to Friendly's in Toms River for the clam boat and occasional fish sandwich.

And thus begins this tale of literal woe for me. On Friday, January 14, 1994, my new girlfriend and I went to the nearby Ocean County Mall for dinner and a movie. We stopped in at Friendly's on that particular evening and I ordered the fish sandwich they made there. All seemed fine afterward and we went to the movie at the old cinema around the corner within the mall. We came back to my folks' place and both of us fell asleep that night in my small bed.

The next morning -- Saturday, January 15, 1994 -- we both woke up and I was feeling sluggish. She knew I had to be at work in the afternoon, so we spent the morning together and then she took off for her home in Monmouth County. But I couldn't shake whatever it was that I had. Usually at the Observer at this particular time, I would come into work around 4:30 p.m. and if there were games to pick up during the day, I'd do that. At this particular time, I was the girls basketball writer for the paper, and the highlight of the day/night for me was the big Class A South match-up between two very good teams, Southern Regional and Toms River North, with the game at North that night. It would be the first meeting this season between the two big-time rivals.

But at 3 p.m., I started feeling worse. I couldn't shake whatever it was I had. It was so bad that by 4 p.m., I was wishing whatever I had went away. At that point, I called up my boss, Mike, and explained to him that I was not up to taking phone calls, but I was up to covering the basketball game right around the corner from me at North and could I just forgo being in the office where I felt miserable. He knew I was very good for the time he was there at being loyal and dependable. So he gave me a pass and told me he'd see me after the game.

By 6 p.m., the pain was becoming so bad that I was starting to feel nauseous. I spent quite a bit of time upstairs in the bathroom trying to induce my vomiting. That's how bad it was. Problem, though, was I couldn't do it. That's when I knew there may be a problem for this one evening. Or at least that was my best hope -- that this wouldn't linger for days.

I knew at 6:30 what the culprit was in the past 24 hours since I hadn't eaten anything else before or after. The only thing I could do was tough it out -- and so by 7 p.m., I was off to make the three-plus mile trip to Old Freehold Road to Toms River North's old gymnasium to watch this battle of titans.

North's Mariners of long-time coach Ray Cervino were the defending Class A South champions and were led by a dynamite group of players, starting with junior guard Sandy Bisogno and junior center Dana Simonelli and included sophomore forward Kristen Herzer and 5-foot-7 freshman phenom Melissa Fazio. Southern coach Kathy Snyder had been coach of her team one year longer than Cervino of his. She, too, had a dynamite group of young ladies playing like guards Jodie Davis and Kirsten Sciallo, a good forward in Jamie Bogdol and the Rams, too, had a freshman phenom with a lot of potential in 6-1 center Candice McCallum.

On paper, this was looking to be a tremendous battle. But they were polar opposites of one another. For North, there wasn't a jailbreak they didn't enjoy making -- if Cervino had given Bisogno, his point guard, the green light the entire 32 minutes, she'd have run opposition defenses ... and her own team's offense for that matter ... ragged. North averaged 67 points a game in compiling a 5-3 record. Southern, on the other hand, didn't quite have the talent to go up and down the court quite like North did, so they had to slow it up -- and I mean slooooooooooow it up. They were averaging 26 points a game defensively in getting out to a 7-0 start and a Christmas tournament championship.

In other words, it was the proverbial "something had to give."

But in North's case, they were having to deal with an angry coach, who watched his talented Mariners stink up the entire court in a 69-59 loss two nights earlier against Middletown North. So let's just say Friday's practice the day before the Southern game wasn't a very pleasant one.

One team concentrating on playing better defense, the other team concentrating on playing defense by never allowing the other team to have the ball for any amount of time.

Yeah, this one had the potential of being bad in that regard.

I didn't know it was going to be this bad when McCallum and Simonelli jumped center to start the game.

North won the toss and brought the ball up the court. Herzer took a Bisogno pass and scored to make it 2-0.

And Southern took the ball down the court and proceeded to take a lot of time off the clock. No shot clock. No warnings. Nada. North just allowed Southern to dribble around or hold the ball. You'd thought Dean Smith was making a 1970s cameo in the North gym the way Southern was going to work the four corners. Somehow, Taragh Maples scored to make it 2-2. And with one more North basket in the first quarter, it was 4-2 in favor of the Mariners.

The second quarter began with Southern doing more of the same -- holding onto the ball, not allowing North to do anything with it. But nothing was coming from it. Allyson Sieka, another North sophomore forward, delivered a basket to make it 6-2.

And under Snyder's command, Southern continued to slow it down until the Rams found what was an "appropriate" shot. They drained the clock to under 90 seconds left before halftime when Davis found the right moment to put up a 3-point shot.

"Noooo! You can't do that! Noooooo!!" 

Swish. "Greaaaat shooot!!"

It was now 6-5 and after North missed another attempt at the basket, McCallum rebounded and got the ball back to Davis. This time, the Rams decided to drain about 35 seconds off the clock before Davis, all of a sudden feeling frisky as hell, threw up another three-point attempt.


Swish! Southern led, 8-6. And when North could not hit a shot at the buzzer, that was the score at halftime.

Southern 8, Toms River North 6. It was a battle of Ocean County titans and Snyder and the Rams successfully slowed it down to a crawl like no one ever saw before or since.

And the way I was feeling at that point physically, if they had put a working toilet bowl right next to the scorer's table, I think I may have been successful in getting rid of what was ailing me.

The Rams and Mariners had succeeded in taking basketball back 50 years in those God-awful 16 minutes. Only two Christian schools with little talent could equal that kind of a first half and I guarantee you, the Christian schools would put up more shots than Southern and North had put up in that first half.

There was no way in hell I was going to be watching a 16-12 game and then having to write about it. Without saying a word, I was clapping hard, my way of pleading and willing Southern to play a little more offense ... and pleading and willing North to get some kind of groove going to make this game seem a little more, well, enjoyable.

I don't think in my 28 years of covering athletics have I wanted something as dull and tedious as this game to be a little more exciting. The first thing Cervino did coming out of the locker room was to drop out of the 2-3 zone his team was playing and go man-to-man so they could open things up more. Yeah, it was a little bit of a risk to do that, but deep in his heart, I think Cervino knew his team had better overall talent than Snyder's Rams.

It didn't work at the start as McCallum scored her first basket of the game to begin the third quarter. But at least North got Southern out of that "hold-the-ball-for-minutes-until-you-go-into-REM-sleep" mode. And Cervino had Bisogno and her teammates push the envelope, taking the ball to the basket and drawing fouls -- much to Snyder's consternation toward the officials over the fouls her girls were not committing but yet they were getting called for. Both Sieka and Herzer drew fouls and each hit both free throws to make it 10-10. And on the inbounds pass after Herzer's free throws, Fazio came up with a steal and fed to a driving Bisogno for the layup that gave North the lead back at 12-10 with 6:07 left in the third quarter.

Now that was what I was waiting for. And unfortunately, it was not what Southern Regional wanted to see. North was able to outscore the Rams, 8-4, the rest of the quarter to build a 20-14 lead by the end of the period, the last two points coming after McCallum fouled Bisogno on a 3-point shot at the end of the period.

Southern never truly got back into this game. North took advantage of Southern's fouls, some more questionable than others, and would finish the game a gaudy 22-for-27 from the charity stripe. Maples hit a basket with 4:33 to go to cut Southern's deficit to 23-17. But 17 seconds later, Sieka had three layup opportunities, the third one going in to make it an eight-point lead.

McCallum hit a free throw to make it 25-18, but that would turn out to be Southern's last hurrah. Herzer hit two free throws and then completed a three-point play with 1:18 to go to make it 30-18. Fazio hit two free throws to finish out the 32-18 win that solidified North as the team to beat in the division and handed Southern its first loss of the season.

Another highlight of this night was having to interview both coaches afterward. While Cervino was succinct about where things fell into place and how he was proud of his girls for bouncing back from that terrible first half to win the game, two nights after that terrible exhibition against Middletown North, the always-outspoken Snyder was far more direct about the fouls being called on her team that eventually led to Bogdol and McCallum fouling out.

"The officials stunk." Yeah, I heard about it from her athletic director, Kim DeGraw-Cole, a few days later that she probably shouldn't have said that and that I probably shouldn't have written it. But in all my years I knew Kathy Snyder, she was never backing down from what she thought.

Still, Snyder wasn't going to throw complete blame solely on the people calling the game.

"We will take full responsibility for the loss. We should've been as good as North, but when you miss free throws (the Rams were 2-for-6 from the line in the fourth quarter), you don't help yourself."

Herzer scored 10 points and had six rebounds, while Bisogno had eight points. McCallum was held to six points in this one.

I struggled back to the office, still feeling like crap. And once I got the story written and boxscore from the game put together for the scoreboard page, I helped out where I could before leaving for the night. The next day, the stomach virus went away and I was able to go to the bathroom and didn't have to put my face into the toilet.

North won this game because they were, by far, the more talented team. Southern's scrappers could only hang with North for as long as they could before the Mariners took them to task. And in the return battle a few weeks later at Southern, North won that game, too, and eventually captured the division title again.

But there would be a third battle between the teams. That would come in the NJSIAA South Jersey Group IV Tournament quarterfinals on Thursday, March 3, 1994 at Southern, the second-seeded Rams holding a better overall record than the seventh-seeded Mariners on the cutoff day for the state tournament. I was off from work that night, so fellow writer Steven Falk got to cover the game, and I took the game in as a spectator.

Southern stayed with North the entire way. North held a 39-36 lead with mere seconds left in the game, but Southern had the ball. Snyder diagrammed a play that threw North for a loop -- they sent McCallum out behind the 3-point arc. With Simonelli jumping out at her, McCallum launched a shot that hit nothing but net. Simonelli was called for the foul and McCallum sank the free throw to finish out the four-point play and when North's last-ditch prayer was not answered, Southern had come away with a shocking 40-39 win. I can still see Snyder running on the court hugging her freshman center in what would become McCallum's defining first moment of her young career and I can still see the tears streaming down Simonelli's face, mainly somewhere between sadness and shock.

North's promising season was over and Southern moved on. The Rams ultimately would lose to a talented Vineland team in the SJ IV semifinal two nights later. But the scripts both teams would begin writing the next three years would be remarkable. In 1995, Southern Regional reached the SJ IV final, but lost to Washington Township. In 1996, North beat Southern, 36-27, to win the SJ IV championship after Southern once again threatened to slow things up, holding North down and taking a 15-9 lead at halftime. North would go on to play for the Group IV championship, losing to Elizabeth in the final. And in 1997, Southern returned the favor on North, beating the Mariners in the SJ IV title game at Toms River East for what would be Snyder's first-ever SJ championship in her long and illustrious career. Southern, led by McCallum as a senior, would ultimately lose to Ashja Jones-led Piscataway in the Group IV semifinal, a year after North had beaten Piscataway in that same game.

That North-Southern rivalry was at its absolute best in that four-year period and was easily the best Ocean County girls basketball rivalry I got to cover.

And to think it began with something so terribly not close to basketball that I could have easily thrown up ... which was something I so badly wanted to do on that January 15, 1994.

The moment I knew the Memorial matmen were for real

My last semester at Ocean County College in the winter/spring of 1986 was yet to start. It was a new year, and I was excited about the things to come. And I was excited about the assignments I got handed to me during the holiday period at the Observer.

I saw the finals of the Jaguar Classic boys basketball tournament at Jackson Memorial High School. I got to cover the WOBM Christmas Classic final when Southern Regional's Steve Lally sunk a halfcourt shot at the buzzer to beat Toms River North and give the Rams the championship. And on the Saturday before that, I got to cover the Neptune Wrestling Classic at Neptune High School.


Coach Tony Caravella's Brick Memorial wrestlin' Mustangs were there and they were expected to dominate a field that wasn't exactly powerful and mighty. So in all fairness, I couldn't really gauge how good this team was. I knew they were coming back defending Shore Conference Tournament champions after Dean Kanabrocki's "bear hug 'heard round the Shore" tied up Tim Rioux and gave the Mustangs the title over defending champion Toms River East. And most of the wrestlers on that club were back, including Kanabrocki, Dean Albanese and Bob Martin, a 169-pounder who had high hopes of going all the way to a state championship.

But dominating a group of teams that didn't strike the fear of God in Memorial's eyes wasn't all that scintillating. It just felt, well, "blaaaah." Yet, it was a story and it got in the paper and no one complained and I guess it was all right, yadda yadda yadda.

A week and a half later as 1985 was now 1986, I draw the assignment to go see Brick Memorial wrestle again. OK, fair enough. I'll see them a second time and maybe the team or teams they face will be a lot more intimidating.

Turns out, one of the teams they were going to face was a fellow Top 10-ranked school in New Jersey called Delaware Valley. So, yeah, I'm hyped up. I couldn't wait to go!

"Where am I going to see this?"

"Delaware Valley Regional High."

"Where the hell is that?!"

"Somewhere in northwest Jersey."

Suddenly I wasn't so excited about a road trip. Monmouth County, sure. A little further than that, I'm still OK.

Out in the hinterlands, what the f**k!!?? What did I do now to draw this assignment from hell?

The only thing I had to keep telling myself was that once I got there, I was going to see this great match taking place last on the day. It was an all-day quadrangular event that started around 1 p.m., would start up again with two more matches at 3 p.m. and finish up with the two other schools there, St. Augustine Prep and Seton Hall Prep, wrestling at about 5 p.m., then followed up by the finale at about 7 p.m.

So really, I didn't have to be there for Brick Memorial's mow-downs of the other two schools. I just had to make sure that I was there for the big one and could get the results of the other two matches Memorial wrestled in. Fair enough. So I set out at about 2 p.m. on that Saturday afternoon, January 11, 1986. I had gotten directions to Delaware Valley via the cops in the little village of Frenchtown. Yup, that's where I was going ... Frenchtown, N.J. I was highly doubting anyone was saying, "Oui" and "Bonjour," but was feeling amused nonetheless.

My aim was to get to DelVal by just after 4 p.m. That should be no problem. One of the keys to this ride, though, was to find Route 29, which runs alongside the Delaware River. And I was pretty sure the directions I had were accurate. How I interpreted them was another story, though.

Back in 1986, I-195 that sliced across the state from Trenton to Wall Township did not directly hook up with I-295, and so I would have to exit off in Hamilton Township and weave my way through Yardley, then ultimately, I'd pick up I-295 heading north. When I-295 turned into I-95 heading south, there was the exit for Route 31, one way takes me into Trenton, the other takes me north toward Flemington. Well, since I had not done any coverage of any events at that particular time in Flemington, I thought, "This should be interesting." And so I took the exit for Route 31 north.

It's a lot of pretty scenery, but my goal was to look for Route 202, which if you took a left turn and headed south would take you directly onto Route 29. Well, somehow, I found the exit before I found New Hope, Pa. and veered right and headed north. Route 29 is even more a beautiful route as you drive alongside a mountain that overlooks the Delaware River. My goal was to get into Frenchtown and my directions stated that once I found the road I was to get to, I was to turn left.

That's right ... left. Eight miles later, I hit said road. And stupid me made a left turn -- over the bridge onto Route 32 ... into Pennsylvania. Nope, that wasn't where I was going and my boss later referenced the same scenario (in about the same area) that killed NBC news woman Jessica Savitch in 1983. Thanks a lot!

Unlike the rainy night that took Ms. Savitch's life in a canal, it was a beautiful day and I could see clearly that I wasn't supposed to be in Pennsylvania. There were no tolls, so I immediately found the first intersection I could turn around at and went back over the bridge.

Hmmm, maybe it was a right turn I was supposed to take. And it was. I was on Everettstown Road in Frenchtown, but with my directions already screwed up, this was not going to be as easy as first thought. I ended up asking someone at a gas station where the school was and how far I was from it. Turns out I was still a long way to go. Once I was pointed in that direction, it became pretty easy to find the school.

But the school itself is out in the middle of nowhere. Literally. DelVal High is literally out there in farm country. Still, I didn't care at that particular moment. I was here at last and thankfully at just before 5 p.m. right before the sun set. I just had a feeling I was going to have to take an alternate route to get back home since the route that got me here in the first place felt like a half-day misadventure.

I came to this meet lacking a notebook or a notepad. I didn't have one available and there wasn't a spare one in my Chevy Chevelle. But I had a large 11x17 piece of paper and a clipboard. This was all I was going to need on this day. The one side of the piece of paper was going to be used to copy down the results of Memorial's three matches, bout by bout, as well as notes that I took from the people I interviewed afterward. The other side of this piece of paper was to literally write my story, then to dictate it to either Chris Christopher, our main writer, or Greg Darroch, our assistant sports editor, when I was done. I had secured the phone in the athletic office at DelVal with a little persuasion since the team's very well-liked coach, Vince Fitz, was going to be there awhile anyway.

Yes, this was the era before laptops and handy-dandy Tandys. This was the era of dictation. Ugh!

Once I had contacted Caravella and assistant coach Denny D'Andrea about getting the results I needed from the young lady manager of the team on the blowout wins over Seton Hall Prep (69-0) and St. Augustine Prep (59-12), I was pretty set for the big match of the night. The St. Augustine-Seton Hall match went quick with St. Augustine winning its only match of the afternoon, 34-21.

Now the mats were being cleared and less than 15 minutes later, the lights dimmed down. It wasn't as dramatic as the opening ceremonies of a Phillipsburg High Stateliner match or the Hollywood-produced "Vision Quest" lineup intros, but it was still effective. DelVal fans were raucous and ready to rumble like their wrestlers were. And the Brick Memorial faithful who came to the match were just as fired up. And back in the day, they traveled well.

This was finally the moment of truth, the time to find out if Memorial was for real. The lineups were read. The announcer had done what he was supposed to do to get the crowds fired up. No national anthem ... unlike today where it's played like three or four times at an event. It had been played once already and once was freakin' enough!

It was time to wrestle. First up for Memorial was 101-pounder Tony Nash, who was 8-1 up to this point in the season. His opponent was a kid named Neil Day. And Nash made him kneel all day. Nash put on an exhibition that was stunning. By the time the six minutes were up, Nash had won via a superior decision.

OK, that's just one match. Now came 108-pounder Dan Pulsifer. He went up and down his opponent without much resistance to the tune of a major decision. Same thing for 115-pounder Joe Block. Up, down, over, around, inside, out. Another major decision. It was 13-0 after three matches.

Suddenly, the raucous home crowd wasn't so raucous. Finally, though, it had something to cheer about at 121 pounds when Rob Godown defeated Chuck Marotta by decision. But it was 129-pounder Scott Kirsch who got the three points back with a 13-6 decision in an exhibition of duck-unders and pretzel-twisters against Scott Tettmer, making it 16-3.

Five matches down and Memorial was being businesslike in its approach. Getting those three wins early from Nash, Pulsifer and Block was huge and their best wrestlers were still yet to come.

The 50-50 match involved Ed Feyko of Memorial against Jack Raymond of Del-Val at 134 pounds. The winner of this match was going to gain some momentum for his team. For Del-Val, this was huge. But Raymond could not get the best of Feyko and Feyko walked away with a decision.

This was bad news for Pete Bonilla was up now. Bonilla was a transfer student from Southern Regional High's program and there was always question as to how a talent like Bonilla just suddenly appeared out of nowhere at Caravella's doorstep in the kid's senior year. Miraculous, indeed. Some relative lived in the area so that was the supposed "in" for the kid.

Well, Caravella and D'Andrea weren't turning away very good wrestlers and Bonilla made his mark at the 140-pound weight class by pinning Lance Cyphers in 1:56, making it 25-3. And Fitz was without one of his best wrestlers, 8-1 Rick Savacool at 147 pounds, who supposedly had a bad boil and was not allowed to wrestle. That was a big break for unknown Joe McCabe, who pinned backup 147-pounder Matt Shenberger with a textbook cradle to all but make the match a done deal at 31-3.

There were still matches left. Alabanese came up at 157 pounds and faced another top-notch wrestler in Jamie Wicks. It was a war between the two of them, both exerting as much energy as they could give. In what turned out to be more a defensive battle than anything else, Wicks out-pointed Albanese, 6-4, Albanese's second loss of the season in 10 matches.

With three matches to go, the Mustangs had a 31-6 lead and the win was clinched. But there was the 169-pound bout between 7-1 Martin and Jim Slotterback. Martin came out aggressively, looking to put Slotterback on his back and down in pin position quickly. It looked like Martin was on his way to doing so. Then, out of nowhere, I learned why a sport like wrestling is not always a slam dunk when it comes to the competition.

Martin tilted a little too much into a bad position and Slotterback caught him. Within a matter of five seconds -- that's really all it took ... five seconds -- Slotterback had Martin in the perfect cradle, put him on his back and had him pinned in just 82 seconds. I can still see the scene, even through the darkness of the gym with only the lights shining down on the mat. The DelVal side was jumping up and down for absolute joy. The Memorial side just sat in silence. Their golden boy and best hope for a state title basically got caught and pancaked.

Said Caravella after the match, "He's not good off his back. Last year, he was never caught on his back."

It was about the only major hurrah the Terrier fans had that evening. DelVal's Kelly Wicks was given a forfeit win at 187 pounds and Kanabrocki pinned John Stains in 1:23 to finish it off.

Brick Memorial 37, Delaware Valley 18. And it wasn't a narrow escape either -- it was a resounding win, one that took the air out of the room of those DelVal fans.

If I had not known two weeks earlier in that meet in Neptune, I sure as anything knew that these Mustangs were for real. I talked with Kirsch, one of the senior leaders of the team and one of the more vocal Mustangs on the club. And I talked with both Caravella and Fitz afterward. Fitz was in awe of what he saw across the mat. Caravella was in awe of what he saw from his own guys.

"I think we've proven we're the best in the state," Caravella told me afterward.

They made their point and it was pretty loudly, too.

The crowds had dispersed and I was in the athletic office scratching out my story. The problem, though, was trying to do it with the lead I wanted to write it with. I finally had written the lead and story and was ready to dictate it over the phone to Chris. He took all three agates from the matches Memorial wrestled that day. In the middle of that dictation, though, Fitz walked into the room and said he needed to get out of there as soon as possible and apologized.

I figured I could find a pay phone somewhere and call collect. Fitz gave me some places to call from, but the problem was, it was not exactly warm that night, temperatures in the upper 20s.

I asked Chris to give me about 20 to 30 minutes to leave the school and find a pay phone. It took closer to 20, but I had backtracked to a gas station that not only had a pay phone, but one where I could make a phone call from inside my car. Anyone else remember those phones long before cell phones ruled the day?

Once I got settled in, I connected with the operator and asked to call collect to my office. Chris answered the phone and accepted the charges, and I was able to dictate my story to him from the heated confines of my car. I think it took 10 minutes, but he had everything from me and about 9:35 p.m., my night was over and I was able to get home around 11:30 that night.

By the way, I would see that bridge in Frenchtown one more time a year later when my then-girlfriend and I crossed over it and headed north through the Delaware Water Gap area on Route 32 toward Route 22 and ultimately to Dorney Park for her 18th birthday.

Three days later after that match on January 14, 1986, I was at Toms River High School North for a Class A South boys basketball matchup between North and Brick Memorial. Memorial's boys basketball team was also in the middle of a divisional championship season. I'm sitting near the press table like I did in the early stages of my career when two Memorial wrestlers showed up and decided to say hi to me. It was Kirsch and Albanese who were there to support the basketball guys.

Scott Kirsch was so happy to know that his prowess was in the paper as well as his team's success that he told me, "We don't want Earle covering us ... he's out. We want you." Now it was all flattering that he felt that way and that I did him justice with the two matches I covered in those three Saturdays. But I told him he was going to have to accept John Earle Livingston, our wrestling writer, and that he would do just as good a job covering his team as I would. I had other people and sports to cover.

But it made me feel good, I do admit. And by the end of February, Memorial had that magical season, finishing unbeaten, winning the Shore Conference Tournament with relative ease, then winning the NJSIAA South Jersey Group III and overall Group III state titles. They would finish the year as the No. 1 team in the state. And two of their wrestlers -- Block at 115 pounds and Martin at 169 -- would go on to win state championships that year as well.

It is still the most dominating wrestling team for one season I ever witnessed. And I was glad to see it when it truly blossomed on a January Saturday night where one wrong turn landed me in Pennsylvania momentarily.

In the hinterlands. It truly felt like it.