I've written year-end columns each year for the past three, mostly hitting the highlights of whatever I've seen and trying to inject some personality in the process.

But so much has happened the past five months with the 35 or 40 schools in our coverage area that it's necessary to stop at a somewhat awkward junction – the end point of the academic year but nearly the halfway point of the calendar year – and take pause.

After all, once the fall gets running the great achievements of baseball teams like Westside and Bellaire or the Katy Taylor softball team’s surprising postseason run may get overshadowed.

So indulge me, if you please, for a moment of reflection and a peek at 2008, so far:

Best game

Westside’s 6-5 win against Baytown Sterling in Game 2 of their regional semifinal series May 23. On the cusp of sweeping their third straight postseason series, the Wolves lost a four-run lead only to win in the seventh when, of all things, Cory Maltz was hit with the bases loaded by future Yankees draft pick Brett Marshall. Then Michael Falcone, a pitcher who’d been on the mound twice all year, earned a pressure-packed save after Maltz put the first two batters on by hitting one and walking the next.

It was an appropriate win given the Wolves’ fortunes – their deepest postseason run in school history lasted until Game 3 of the regional finals against District 20-5A foe Bellaire.

Best ending(s)

Another Westside award, this time for its Game 1 defeat of Cy-Fair in their area round series May 8. Freshman Daniel Mengden slammed the first pitch of the bottom of the seventh inning for a home run, breaking a classic scoreless pitchers’ duel.

“He (Cy-Fair pitcher Austin Coble) gave me my favorite pitch, a ball high and in, but I was just trying to get on with a hit or a walk and start something,” Mengden said.

I’ve always wanted to see a double no-hitter – or better yet a double perfect game – end on one pitch in the bottom of the last inning. That’s far-fetched, so this was the next best thing.

A close second was Memorial’s Kyle Guest clubbing a walkoff home run in the eighth inning to cap a comeback win against Stratford on March 28.

“I couldn’t even feel it coming off the bat,” Guest said.

Best interview

Brittney Day, Queen of the Bayou Bowl, and her mother took a few minutes to sit with me during the Bayou Bowl Celebrity Golf Outing two weeks ago and discuss candidly Brittney’s lifelong battles with several muscular diseases. Though the 12-year-old needs the help of a live-in provider and can’t do certain things most take for granted, like raise her arms much above her shoulders, Brittney lives as normal and positive a life as anyone.
Maybe the cards she was dealt are why she lives that way.
On the reporter’s end, such optimism is a huge relief. You’re never sure when you talk to someone in a delicate situation how much they’re willing to discuss or how willing they’ll be to talk at all.
Watch some of the interview here and read her story here.

Best quote

Memorial golfer Cory Whitsett, on his sixth-place finish at the Houston Boys Invitational in February, where he finished 5-over par and seven shots behind the winner:
"It's good for people who don't want to win."

Biggest laugh

Whenever videographer Dustin Duffy and I let Team Texas and/or Team Louisiana take over the microphone last week during our Bayou Bowl coverage. If anyone’s wondering who will fill Conan O’Brien’s 11:35 p.m. spot when he takes over for Jay Leno next year, let me nominate Cypress Falls receiver Denzel Wells. He’s a people magnet.

Maybe he and future Rice teammate John Gioffre can tape the show together after practice.

Sure, some of it was just kids being kids, but some of them have a future in humor.

I never will understand how ...

A coach can take time during a do-or-die playoff game to complain to the public-address announcer about the music selection, on behalf of their players. The other team apparently was more focused, which you could tell when they refrained from pulling off dance moves in the on-deck circle.

The “other team” won.

My “what a shocker” moment

When the Bayou Bowl kicked off five minutes early Saturday, only to have officials force a rekick in large part because FSN Southwest’s telecast had yet to begin. Never mind that it wouldn’t air the game for another 47 hours. And, of course, the artificial TV timeouts had to be full-length, too.

Sportswriters love early starts and quick games, the antithesis of everything televised sports stands for.
 
To-do list for the summer

Take a vacation as far north as I can get, preferably when I think it’s as hot as it can get here. ... Plan the monster roadie to College Station for 7-on-7 – not monstrous in distance but in pulling off blanket coverage of a hectic statewide event. ... Run down all the fall sports schedules. ... Golf at least once.

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