The 2010-11 school year was filled with notable and memorable games for Jefferson County teams. Here, in chronological order, are 10 that stuck out when we looked back over the year:
SOFTBALL: Summit 4, Parkway Central 3
Softball runs on a different clock than the rest of the high school calendar. When the rest of the fall sports teams still are studying their schedules and circling games that might be important, softball is hip deep in league races and postseason plans.
Midway through September, Rockwood Summit clinched the Suburban South title by knocking off a Parkway Central team that won 20 games. Down 1-0 after the first inning, the Summit offense chipped away with runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings while Lauren Jameson pitched around two errors. Ellie Cooper, Amy Boyer and Meghan Bedenikovic delivered RBI hits for the Falcons. The league loss was the only one of the season for Central.
The win against Central was Summit's third 4-1 win in six days - and it was Summit's last 4-1 win of the season.
FOOTBALL: Festus 20, De Soto 19
Sometimes, the numbers are misleading. But not this time.
Festus and De Soto finished the season with exactly the some numbers. Each went 7-4 overall and 3-1 to share the title in the Red Division of the Mississippi Area Football Conference.
And their Oct. 1 game was as close as the season-ending numbers. From first quarter to fourth quarter the two exchanges hits and scores. De Soto scored first, then Festus answered. Then De Soto, then Festus. Again De Soto, and, finally, with just 44 second left, Festus. And those final 44 seconds were interesting: De Soto drove down inside Festus' 25 yard line before time ran out.
Xavier Ruffin scored two TDs, including the game winner for Festus, while Donald Hoss, the MAFC Red most valuable player, ran for two scores and passed for a third.
BOYS SOCCER: Seckman 2, Fox 1 (PK shootout)
Soccer goalies do not get many opportunities to be the hero. Instead, they get a lot of opportunities to be the goat.
Scott Leslie turned that notion on its head on Oct. 12. As a long night drifted through a hard-fought regulation and two overtime periods, Leslie got the chance to do what few goalies get to do. He got to be the hero.
When the game went to a penalty kick shootout, the Seckman goalie was selected as one of the Jaguars five shooters. When his turn came to shoot, he pushed a shot to the left while Fox's Trevor Huber dove right. Goal! The score gave Seckman the PK edge, but Fox still had a shot remaining.
Leslie stepped back into goal and did exactly what Huber had done a moment earlier - he read the shooter and made an educated guess where the shot was headed. Diving to his right, he got his hand on the shot and deflected the bullet outside the post.
The save made Seckman a winner and Leslie a hero.
GIRLS VOLLEYBALL: Festus def. De Soto 25-22, 22-25, 25-21
The Festus-De Soto pairing is a difficult one to figure. And if you are a De Soto fan, this is where you nod your head and say, "Amen."
Festus defeated De Soto in a close semifinal match at the Class 3 district tournament at De Soto on Oct. 27. Breanne Borman, Meghan Marshall and Meghan Eggemeyer had terrific matches for Festus in one of the biggest upsets of the area fall season. Festus, after all, finished the season 13-19 while De Soto won the JCC title for the third year in a row and closed its year at 27-4.
De Soto had not lost to a Jefferson County Conference opponent in more than two years. The Dragons' undefeated run against JCC team stretched 28 matches (27-0-1).
So how, even with clutch games by Borman, Marshall and Eggemeyer, did Festus pull it off?
Actually, heading into the district showdown, the Tigers had been closer than almost anyone to ending De Soto's string of JCC successes. Three of the previous five times the two met, Festus forced a three-game set. The difference between taking a loss in the other close matches and winning at the district tournament win was defense. In their district semifinal, Festus blocked De Soto 35 times, more than any team had all year.
FOOTBALL: Herculaneum 28, Crystal City 21
Forever more, when the Herculaneum Blackcats and Crystal City Hornets hear the phrase "that's the way the ball bounces" they will think of this game. In a district championship game between longtime rivals on a near-perfect football night, the two dueled into the fourth quarter when a pass by Herculaneum QB Dylan LaBrayere hit one or two sets of hands and deflected to Aaron Fuller for the game-winning touchdown.
The game had a string of oh-no, and oh-yes moment. Herculaneum's Frank Abate ran for three touchdowns in the first half. Crystal City, after a goal-line stand turned Herky back just before halftime, rallied to tie the game midway through the third quarter.
The win gave Herky, which hung its hopes on a group coach Stan Helms called the Ironman 13, a district championship.
BOYS SOCCER: Hillsboro 2, Farmington 1 (overtime)
Soccer in not a big upset sport. Yes, the United States' World Cup upset of England is legend, but that was in 1950, 60 years ago. What have the upset gods been up to lately?
Hillsboro's overtime win against Farmington on Nov. 4 is not quite in a class with U.S. 1, England 0, but it will rate near the top of the Hawks soccer memories for as long as Hillsboro plays the game.
Hillsboro won its first district title on an overtime goal by Connor Callahan. The sophomore scored both Hawks goals in the game. Hillsboro led 1-0 at halftime, and Farmington tied the game in the second half. Jack Temple earned the win in goal for the Hawks, coming up with six saves.
The thing that made the Hawks' win special - though it's hard to come up with anything about an overtime district championship win that's not special - was that Farmington had thoroughly whipped Hillsboro during a regular-season contest 8-1.
Farmington closed an impressive season at 19-3, while Hillsboro finished at 15-12-1 after losing to Cape Girardea: Notre Dame 3-1 in the Class 2 sectionals.
BOYS BASKETBALL: Hillsboro 63, Festus 62
Every heart in the building stopped for a blink when the whistle sounded.
In a district champioonship thriller, Hillsboro scratched out a one-point win against Festus on a free throw by Drew Hern on a foul call with 0.7 seconds left.
The hubbub in the immediate - and even the not-so-immediate - aftermath was: When does an official pocket his whistle? When does a close (or even a not-so-close) call become a no-call?
Hillsboro forced that issue to the top of the things-to-talk-about list by rallying from 15 points down early in the third quarter. The Hawks, who had not won a district title since 1988, pulled even with Festus late in the fourth quarter and held the ball for nearly 1:40 waiting for a last shot. When it misfired on its last shot, Hern grabbed the rebound and went to the hoop twice. He missed on the first attempt and when he went up with the rebound he was fouled.
Hern missed his first free throw, but the second knocked off the back of the rim and fell through the hoop. And that was when hearts began beating again.
GIRLS BASKETBALL: Crystal City 59, Kennedy 47
Depth is an issue for every high school team. Public school, private school. Big school, small school. It doesn't matter. No one has enough depth.
Almost no one. Almost never.
Crystal City was the exception to the rule in the finals of the Class 3 district tournament March 5 at Crystal City. The Hornets headed into the home stretch of the district title game with a handful of their top players sitting on the bench. Their best player, Audrey Cooper, was out with a knee injury. Starters Malorie Smith and Amanda Kilgore, along with bench player Kalynn Taylor, fouled out.
Kennedy, which also had three players foul out, trailed from the start, but pulled into a 44-43 lead with 4 minutes, 21 seconds left in the game. Crystal City, even with most of its frontline talent and experience on the bench, outscored the Celts 16-3 down the stretch as Chelsea Thurman hit six consecutive free throws.
Daniece Riney had her best game of the season - and she couldn't have picked a better time - scoring a team-leading 21 points for the Hornets. But even Riney's big game and Thurman's clutch free-throw shooting wouldn't have been enough without the contributions, large and small, from bench players like Libbie LaFloure, Amara Robinson, Lauren Friedmeyer, Katie Thomas and Taylor.
Crystal City closed its season at 23-5 when it fell in the state sectionals to Scott City 53-44.
GIRLS SOCCER: Seckman 1, Windsor 0
This was a classic offense-versus-defense game, a strength-versus-strength game.
Windsor goalies Morgan Hilterbrand and Kelsey Lahm faced a barrage of shots in the district tournament tuneup on May 11. Hilterbrand turned back nine shots in the first half, and Lahm stopped eight in the second half. By contrast, Seckman goalie Hannah Spraul faced only five shots in the shutout win.
But Windsor didn't stop everything. Katie Sneed took a pass from Jessica Smugala and pushed a score by Hilterbrand in the first half.
That was what coach Jeff Perry was hoping for when he rebuilt Seckman's game plan for the 2011 season. The plan from the first team meeting in February was more shots, more scoring.
A lot of teams promise more of this or extra that, but Seckman delivered. The Jaguars scored 72 goals this spring, 19 more than they had managed in any of the previous five seasons.
The extra goals translated to extra wins. Against Windsor, it took 18 shots to produce one goal but one was all Seckman needed.
BASEBALL: Hillsboro 5, Seckman 4 (10 innings)
Ryan Deckard will argue this, but no one saw this coming. Are you kidding? How could anyone predict that the No. 8 seed in an eight-team district would walk off with the title?
Deckard and the Hawks did the unlikely (if not the impossible) by throwing strikes and hitting in the clutch. Hillsboro's biggest upset in the district was a 5-3 victory against No. 1 seed Oakville in the first round. The Hawks followed that with another 5-3 win, this time against Mehlville. And finally, they scrambled to a 10-inning victory against Suburban South champ Seckman in the title game.
Deckard was the Hawks' hero. The junior was the starter and winner against Oakville, slugged a home run against Mehlville and, after starting and going 5 1/3 innings against Seckman, he moved to the outfield and finished with a home run and a 10th-inning double that became the game-winning run.
Hillsboro, 12-15, ran out of magic in the next round of the postseason, losing 9-5 at Cape Girardeau Central. But no one, save Deckard and the Hawks, would have guessed there was enough magic in the Hawks' bats and gloves to get them beyond the first round of the district.
