2009-10’s Most Memorable Moment

Tuesday, February 17, Jimtown H.S. gym, Baugo Twp., Indiana

The seeds for 2009-10’s most memorable moment were sown two years earlier, on another Tuesday night, two days before Thanksgiving of Seth Kauffman’s sophomore year. That night he took the floor in the Menno Lands for the first time in a varsity uniform, and he led the team in points that season with 258.
Forwards Jordan Shetler and Stephen Pettifor graduated in 2008, and Kauffman stepped in at the first chance he got. In that season’s inaugural game, he poured in 28 points; a last-second three-point shot from Justin Jantzi won the game for Westview 53-50.
The above games are just two examples of how Kauffman reached his standing on the career points list; at 693, he was ninth behind Ed Lewis, who graduated with 706 points, after playing only two years. Kauffman passed Lewis with 26 points in his first game, then surpassed Myron Bontreger’s mark of 751 on December 4 at Prairie Heights and topped David Plaster in a game five days later.
The names of Larry Crilow, Gary Chupp and Tom Lantz went down in similar fashion, and Kauffman entered the Fort Wayne Blackhawk contest January 30 with 932 career points. His 14 that night were three better than Michigan State recruit Russell Byrd did, and Bethany won 52-45. Kauffman added 18 against Clinton Christian and 13 versus Elkhart Christian the next week, putting him only 10 points from Jordan Buller and a tie for second place in school history; he would get 20 that Thursday night in Auburn, Indiana against Lakewood Park.
That set up a memorable Tuesday night on County Road 26, although the game would end up being memorable for a different, unexpected reason. Kauffman entered the game needing only three points for 1,000 in his career. For the man who was averaging 19 points per game, that was not expected to be a challenge.
A challenge it was: the Bruins as a team were held scoreless in the first quarter, and Kauffman did not score in the second quarter or the first three minutes of the third, missing his first three attempts. But with 4:52 to go in the penultimate period, orange pebbled rubber met white nylon and left Kauffman’s career total at 999.
The history Bruin fans were waiting to see came with 1:45 on the clock in the third quarter. Kauffman drove to the lane and shot a right-handed layup. The ball kissed the backboard, then the rim’s left side, and fell through the hoop. Play was blown dead after another second elapsed and Kauffman’s achievement was announced to all in attendance. He would be presented with the game ball before Bethany’s home game four days later against LaVille.
Kauffman finished his career with 1,104 points, only 42 behind four-year varsity player and 1997 alumnus Eliot Friesen.
(Layup photo by Ricky Yoder/Be Blessed Photos, via Michiana Sports Authority; sign photo by Jay Seawell/Elkhart Truth)

Memorable Moments #3 & #2 (Soccer Sectional Edition)

#3. October 15: Penalty kicks go Bruins’ way … eventually
The date given above was in October, but the prelude would be set in September. In front of an Alumni Night crowd that gave the girls their largest attendance of the regular season, Emma Caskey scored in the 63rd minute to tie Bethany and Westview at 1, but Kirstin Oesch put the ball past Bethany goalkeeper Kelly Snyder on the final penalty kick and Westview took the shootout 3-2.
Skip forward 19 days, and the setting was the same. Playing on their home field in front of a smaller fan contingent paying admission to the IHSAA, the Bruins took on another set of Warriors, this time the set from Wawasee. Scheduled to start at 7:00, the game would be delayed over half an hour as Warsaw and Westview went to penalty kicks in the other semifinal.
The Bethany-Wawasee game was played in quite a pleasant atmosphere — from my vantage point in the press box. On the field, however, was another story. The Goshen airport, having picked up snow ten hours before, registered a temperature of 39 degrees at 7:40, with a steady drizzle that would continue throughout the game and a stiff breeze from the northeast. Braving the elements and the defense, Sharisse Yoder scored in the 12th minute to give Bethany a 1-0 lead; Mallory Rondeau answered back with an assist from Haley Cunningham three minutes before halftime to tie the game at 1. Emma Gerig and Marissa Weldy, determined not to make this their final home game, teamed up on the go-ahead goal in the 43rd minute, an advantage that Cassandra Degood erased just after the period’s halfway point. Neither team scored in the remaining 19 minutes or in either overtime, and the sectional finalist would be decided in a penalty kick shootout after extra time finished in a 2-2 draw.
The year before, NorthWood’s Kelcy Heckaman who scored with five minutes to go; in 2008, the same Wawasee Warriors stepped to the same penalty mark and eliminated Bethany in a hard-fought game at the place now known as Bodiker Field. Would it happen again? Not if another senior had anything to say about it.
That senior was not Karli Graybill; although she likely would have agreed, she mishit the first attempt of the shootout and sent it high of the goal. Rondeau scored to give Wawasee a 1-0 lead in the shootout, an advantage that was erased when Emma Caskey converted her attempt for BCHS and Sarah Rozow was unable to follow suit. Sharisse Yoder and Kayla Courtney both put their schools on the board, but Weldy’s shot met the gloves of Warrior goalie Amy Walker and was deflected wide. Katie Allen scored, and suddenly the Bruins were up against the wall on their own home field.
Malaina Weldy converted her opportunity to tie the shootout at 3, but Wawasee had one attempt remaining. The match, two hours old and involving over two dozen people, and the careers of so many seniors came down to two seniors and one shot. At the penalty mark, placing the ball down under the eye of referee Walt MacRae, stood Bethaney Acton of Wawasee. On the goal line was Kelly Snyder of Bethany, who made 10 saves her sophomore year and 7 her junior in elimination games where the Bruins were outshot but almost held on, being undone by a single late shot going in.
This time, it didn’t go in. Acton missed, and elimination would not be possible for at least a few minutes.
If there is anything in soccer more gut-wrenching than a shootout, it is a sudden-death shootout, and that was the stage to which this game was headed. But sudden-death was a bit of a misnomer, as neither team’s season would die. Their opportunities, however, did. The sixth round featured a pair of misses. Bethany’s sixth shooter was freshman Laken Richer. Aiming for the back of the net, she hit Walker instead, only to see Haley Cunningham’s game-winning attempt saved. Elyse Hooley rattled the woodwork with a shot that hit the crossbar and popped straight up, only to be collected by Walker. But Maggie Reichel’s shot was saved, as was each team’s ninth attempt. Finally Anna Nafziger broke through, her shot sailing into the net past a diving Walker.
Again the game came down to two girls and one shot, with Snyder again in goal and Lexi Blunk playing the part of Acton. The ball went to Blunk’s right. Snyder dove to her left, and the two met.
That save ended the game with Bethany prevailing 3-2, 4-3 in penalty kicks. Wawasee’s season ended there; Bethany advanced to meet Warsaw two nights later for the sectional championship. You’ll read about that game later in this series, but at the time, the sectional semifinal was the most memorable moment in the 2009 season.
#2. October 17: Defense wins championship
The title for this game is a cliché as old as defense itself, or it would be were an “s” not missing from the end. But on the third Saturday in October, it worked for Bethany.
Defense that night had to be played by the teams, without assistance from rain or near-freezing temperatures as there was two days before. The air was a pleasant 48 degrees, the sky free of rain for over 40 hours before.
Bethany jumped out to an early lead, scoring in the 12th minute on a Sharisse Yoder corner kick featured earlier in the Memorable Moments series. That was most of the work for Warsaw netminder Diana Monroy, as Bethany managed no other shots on goal for 68 minutes thereafter. Warsaw got off seven, although both teams saw other opportunities end in shots that were not on goal. When the first six of those attempts came in, Bethany’s Kelly Snyder was ready, seizing the same opportunities and balls that she had in the shootout with Wawasee.
Warsaw had one more opportunity in the final half-minute. One more shot was fired, and after a scrum in the penalty area, the ball landed in front of the senior goalkeeper playing her final game at home. She fell on the ball as the Nevco scoreboard showed 0:06, covering it and finally getting up as the game-ending horn was triggered and the scoreboard reading 1-0 in Bethany’s favor.
For the first time since 2005, Bethany’s girls soccer team won the sectional championship. It was their first trophy for the Bruins under head coach Dennis Yoder, but the school won four in nine years under the direction of Bryan Kehr before he resigned to become athletic director. And although their season ended in the regional with a 5-0 loss to powerhouse Penn, the Bruins walked out of Bodiker Field that night as none of the players had before: as sectional champions.
Coming up tomorrow: This year, the Bruins set numerous school records. The moment remaining wasn’t one of them, but it was still number one.

Memorable Moments #5-#4

#5. December 15: Bruins take Trojans to the wire

Entering the Trojan Trench in Bourbon, Ind., on the night of December 15, Bethany was not even the biggest basketball story in Goshen. That honor belonged to Goshen College senior Errick McCollum II, who that night broke the Maple Leafs career scoring record. But if the Bruins, who began their third game in six days 1-4 and 20-point underdogs in the statewide Sagarin ratings, were not a story before that game, they certainly were after.
Triton came in 5-0 and ranked second in class 1A by the Associated Press. The only school ahead of them was Bowman Academy, the eventual state champion; Triton had been a state finalist in 2009 and won the title in 2008. Bethany had made it as far as semistate only twice, most recently in 2002. The Bruins took their first sectional trophy in seven years home in 2009, only to see their season end on the same court on which they were about to play.
But from the opening tip, none of that history mattered. Bethany outscored Triton 15-8 in the first quarter. They tacked on 21 more in the second, their highest-scoring quarter of the year to that point, with the lead ballooning to 13 points before settling back into a 36-28 halftime lead. The lead would be gradually siphoned off in the third quarter, as Triton closed the gap to 38-37 after three periods.
In the waning seconds, the game’s defining moment came. Seth Kauffman picked off a Triton pass near midcourt, and the resulting slam dunk with 0.2 seconds to play would set the final score at 52-50 in Triton's favor. It was Kauffman’s fifth career dunk, as well as the first for which we have photographic evidence; that photo, taken by Orion Lemler of the Triton Trojan Athletic Club, can be seen at the top of this post.
Bethany didn’t win its second game of the season that night. However, it would do so that Saturday against Clinton Christian. From there, the Bruins did no looking back, winning 13 of 15 games starting with the holiday tournament and finishing the regular season 13-7. They would lose in the sectional semifinal to a Fort Wayne Blackhawk squad that was one of the last eight teams in class 1A.

#4: February 17: Helmuth’s three sinks Jimtown

As I said above, once the boys basketball team started winning, it did not look back. But on another Tuesday night nine weeks later, they almost did. Again it was a road game, not in the 3,470-seat Trojan Trench but in the still-cavernous Jimtown High School gym with its capacity of 2,106. Bethany entered the game short a pair of players due to illness in point guard Jesse Ramer and forward Andrew Slagel.
This time the Bruins fell behind off the tip, with a bucket from 6-4 forward Brian Hosinski giving Jimtown a lead with 6:04 to play. The buckets weren’t kind to either team that period, as the combined 3-for-13 shooting would indicate. Another basket from Hosinski at the 2:18 mark made him the game’s leading scorer to that point; Jimtown led 6-0, and the score would stay that way until the period’s end.
Bethany came out strong in the second quarter, as they did in the Triton game. This time, however, it was on the defensive end, as they held Jimtown without a point for over 13 minutes into the third quarter; the scoreless second quarter was their best defensive stanza of the season. Hamilton Thorne matched Jimtown’s first-quarter output by himself, with six points on 3-of-6 shooting and four rebounds in the quarter. The Bruins would add a bucket from Mikey Kelly with 5:17 to go, followed just over two minutes later by a three-point shot from reserve guard James Helmuth to take the lead at 7-6.
Jimtown struck back for the first points the second half with a three from Brae Beadles, then tied the game at 14 with a Bret Giddings long-distance shot at 2:40. Thorne’s field goal gave Bethany the lead back only to be answered by another Giddings three-pointer, then Seth Kauffman’s layup was quickly answered by Beadles from downtown. Jimtown led 20-18 with 1:34 to play in the third, and they would maintain that lead for over nine minutes.
After a three-point play from Beadles, the Bruins trailed by five with a quarter left. While the fact that Bethany trailed would not soon change, neither did their offense stagnate. Thorne would mark the first tally of the final period at 6:10, answered by Hosinski 105 seconds later. The teams traded baskets until a pair of free throws from Ben Bontreger with just less than three minutes left cut the gap to 28-24. A three-pointer from Helmuth made it a one-point game with 1:49 showing on the Fair-Play scoreboard. Jimtown would hold the ball for more than a minute, taking advantage of the Bruins’ three team fouls to milk the clock until inside of 25 seconds remained when Femi Hollinger-Janzen fouled.
The subsequent inbound pass was picked off by a leaping Helmuth, and Bethany coach Jim Buller called timeout with :20.4 left to set up the offense. Buller told newspapers after the game that his play was supposed to go inside, but Jimtown’s post presence was too significant. So the ball found Helmuth in the right corner, and he shot. The ball hit nylon with four seconds remaining.
The clock would be reset to 5.1 seconds, but four timeouts later, Bethany would emerge with a 30-28 win. James Helmuth, the only sub to enter for the Bruins, finished with nine points, hitting his last three 3-point attempts and ending as the team’s second-leading scorer. You said his last shot was the fourth most memorable moment from the 2009-10 season, and this game will come up again in the countdown.
(Photo by Ricky Yoder/Be Blessed Photos, via Michiana Sports Authority)
Coming tomorrow: We’ll take the pitch with the girls soccer team for two nights in October.

Memorable Moments #6 & #7

#7. March 5: From overtime to over, times ten
In a little more than 15 seconds, the boys basketball team’s season went from overtime to over. But it was more than just a season that would end.
After a last-second defeat by No. 17 Canterbury on January 21, the Bruins hit a hot streak. They would reel off 10 wins in a row, half of them over sectional opponents and one in the sectional tournament. The margins ranged from a 45-25 win over Elkhart Christian to a three-point shot in the final seconds that propelled Bethany over Jimtown 30-28, but there was a constant: Bethany was on top.
From the tip-off, that outcome looked to be in doubt. Blackhawk outscored Bethany 17-8 after the first quarter and 31-21 at halftime behind 13 points from Russell Byrd and 10 from Seth Kisler. The third quarter would be Bethany’s turn, outscoring Blackhawk 20-10 to level the score at 41-all. The Braves led 50-48 when Seth Kauffman was fouled with 49.8 seconds to play; he made the first free throw, then missed the second but grabbed his own rebound. Putting up another shot, Kauffman was fouled. This time, the second shot fell and the game was tied. Blackhawk advanced the ball to midcourt and called for time with 40.9 seconds remaining.
When play resumed, Blackhawk was fouled getting an offensive rebound. After the first shot by sophomore Reid Zimmerman missed the mark, Bruin coach Jim Buller called for time with :21.6 to go. Zimmerman missed the second and Bethany moved upcourt. But Jon Newmeister intercepted the ball and scored an uncontested fast-break layup with 12.8 seconds on the clock. Ben Bontreger’s left-handed floater at the horn was no good, and just like that, the season and the streak were over with a 52-50 loss to Fort Wayne Blackhawk.
#6. March 2: Kauffman destroys Keystone
Seth Kauffman’s high school basketball career ended that Friday night in Hamilton. But the Tuesday before, statistically, it peaked.
Playing against the Eagles of Fort Wayne Keystone in the sectional quarterfinals for the second year in a row in the opponents’ final game for their school, Kauffman was on a roll in the first half. He hit ten field goals, adding 3-of-4 shooting from the free-throw line for a 23-point first half that left him on pace to break Larry Crilow’s 39-year-old mark of 45 points in a game. But the events of that Tuesday night in LaPorte County would not be surpassed by this Tuesday night in Steuben County. Kauffman was benched with the Bruins comfortably ahead to start the fourth quarter, and watched the final eight minutes tick off as Bethany won 79-58. Kauffman finished with 34 points, good for fourth place in school history, and 15 rebounds, which tied his own performance at third on the BCHS charts. Kauffman finished with 1,104 career points, and you’ll see more of those ahead in the series.
Coming tomorrow: We revisit a seemingly stunning upset that almost was, and let Seth down from a great height.

Memorable Moments #11-#8

#11. September 24: Five-set “thriller” goes Bethany’s way
On senior night for the Bethany volleyball team at the Menno Lands, one senior went down and another stepped up. Hesston College-bound Kate Steury sprained her ankle during the warmup session; coach Lois Mast said her return, which was questionable and eventual, may have provided extra incentive for the team to succeed.
Bethany took a 2-0 set lead at 25-22, 25-15 before Elkhart Christian responded by taking the third and fourth sets at 22 and 17 points. On the first point of the fifth and deciding set, the momentum would shift again. Greg Keim of the Goshen News described that shift thus:

On the initial serve in the fifth and final game by ECA junior Kayley Baughman, Bethany’s dig appeared to be headed out of bounds. That’s when [senior Andrea] Born made a lunging save and the Bruins were able to get the ball over the net for a 1-0 lead.

Mast would later describe the play as “awesome,” citing it as an example of the Bruins’ superior defense that night — even if it was against themselves.
Bethany prevailed 25-22, 25-15, 22-25, 17-25, 15-12.
#10. October 17: Yoder scores on a corner

With 11 minutes elapsed in the scoreless soccer match sectional championship soccer match at Bodiker Field, referee Walt MacRae pointed toward the pitch’s southeast corner and awarded a penalty kick to the host Bruins. Midfielder Sharisse Yoder stepped up to take the kick, as she had many times over the season, and sent it on a line into Warsaw penalty area. The ball caromed off the right shoulder of Tiger goalkeeper Diana Monroy, hit the crossbar, and fell into the goal to give Bethany a 1-0 lead. It would be Bethany’s only shot on goal for the night, leaving them to play defense for over 68 minutes.
(More from this game coming later in the series.)
#9. May 15: Lehman hurls a one-hitter
In their first two turns at bat, Elkhart Christian managed two runs off Bruin pitcher Mattie Lehman despite a single from Annalisa Puckett being their sole tally in the hits column. But the 2-0 score after 1½ (or, for that matter, 3½) innings was as close as the Eagles would get. Bethany exploded for five runs in the fourth inning, all against starting pitcher Carrie Risner, and held the Eagles hitless for three more innings to close out game one with a 5-2 victory despite mustering only four singles and a double themselves. Puckett’s would be the only Eagle hit.

#8. September 15: Snyder goal propels BC over Goshen
Is it possible for a freshman in his twelfth high-school contest to dramatically alter the outcome? Yes. Does it happen? Not usually. But on a Tuesday night in September, Andrew Snyder turned the usual on its head, driving home a free kick with under seven minutes to play and giving the Bruins a 1-0 lead in their annual tussle with Goshen for city bragging rights. Jeff Yoder made seven saves that night to ensure that Bethany would come out ahead by the same score, at least until the teams met in the sectional final on the same field 25 days later. And while Snyder would score five other goals in 2009, part of a freshman trio that tallied 14 times for the varsity, none was more memorable than this.
Coming tomorrow: Bleeding Bruin Blue hits the hardwood for a pair of events from a memorable week in Hamilton.

Memorable Moments #15-#12

#15. April 26: Kelly hits for the cycle
Soon after 6:00 on a 64-degree Monday afternoon, Mikey Kelly stepped to the plate at Bodiker Field and lined the first pitch he saw to center field for a triple. After scoring on a single by James Helmuth, Kelly singled on the second pitch of his next at bat in the following inning and scored again. While the scoring accounted for two runs of Bethany’s 6-0 lead after three frames, the most significant score would be in the fifth. Leading off, Kelly lined a 1-1 pitch from Ryan Seller down the right field foul line for his first home run of the season. In the fifth, he would make the most of his final at bat by ripping a ball into the left-center field gap and stopping at second base with a double. Having recorded all four types of hits in the same game, Kelly turned an otherwise uneventful Monday night game into what is believed to be the first cycle in school history in a 14-4 victory over Valparaiso Victory Christian.
#14. October 3: Boys soccer takes conference title
Playing on their rain-soaked home turf at Bodiker Field, Jesse Ramer and Femi Hollinger-Janzen combined to slip three goals in six minutes past Argos goalkeeper Dylan Colburn. Seth Kauffman added another tally after halftime, and the Bruins held Argos scoreless and claimed their third consecutive Northern Indiana Soccer Conference title with a 4-0 defeat. Argos was runner-up for the third time in six years.
#13. May 22: Softball comes back against ECA
After an inning and a half of the Goshen Invitational consolation game, things were not looking up for the softball team. They mustered one hit in falling 16-0 to the hosts in the first round and trailed Elkhart Christian 5-0. To make matters worse, ECA was the team’s first-round sectional opponent just three days later. Bethany plated single runs in the second and third innings to cut the gap to 5-2. It was then that the floodgates opened, with a seven-run fourth giving way to three and four runs in the next two innings before the game was called in the sixth due to the ten-run mercy rule with the score 16-6 in favor of Bethany. Lauren Hooley finished with three hits and five RBI to lead the Bruins, while Mattie Lehman scattered two hits among six innings on the mound.
#12. December 19: Bruins win holiday tournaments
Low-scoring games and aggressive defense were hallmarks of the final games of the 2009 Bethany Christian Tournament. The girls used none of their usual offensive weapons, as Marla zumFelde missed five of six 3-point attempts and the team was an anemic 5-for-18 from the free throw line. Bethany entered the day with a 13-player roster combining JV and varsity, a shorthandedness that was compounded by a knee injury in the first game that ended one season; in the second quarter, a collision while diving for a loose ball would force the Bruins to play without starter Chris Minter. But trailing 31-25 entering the final quarter, the team outscored Elkhart Christian 15-8 as Eagle forward Natalie Allen sat with four fouls and then fouled out with nearly two minutes remaining; in her absence, the Eagles fell 40-39. Bethany finished with 11 points from zumFelde, nine from Ali Hochstetler and eight from Mandy Schlabach; Natalie Thorne had six to go with nine rebounds.
If the girls’ 40 points seemed low, the boys’ 37 could not be a good thing. But unlike the girls, the boys held Elkhart Christian to only eleven points in a first half that saw Bethany’s Jesse Ramer and ECA’s Sean Addison receive technical fouls on separate incidents from referee Darrell Watson. Addison would leave partway through the second half with an apparent injury. Bruin forwards Seth Kauffman and Hamilton Thorne finished with a combined 22 points and 23 rebounds, anchoring the interior of a defense that held the Eagles to 10 field goals and drew 20 fouls. Bethany’s offense operated from the interior as well, with no three-point shots and only three field goals from shooters smaller than 6’0”. But it was enough for a 37-28 win.
Coming tomorrow: We twist and bend our way through three nail-biting victories, as well as a fourth that wasn’t so close.

Memorable Moments: Those That Weren't

Starting sometime soon (hopefully tomorrow), I'll start counting down the 15 most memorable moments as determined by you, the fans. But before we look at those, here are a few more moments that didn't make the list.

August 18: Gerig opens season with goals
Taylor Christophel scored the Bruin girls soccer team's first goal of 2009, only 21 seconds into the game against a South Bend Riley squad that would finish 1-10-1. But 24 minutes later, Emma Gerig scored the team's second. Bethany added another before the intermission to make the score 3-0, but then Gerig tallied three goals in twelve minutes from the 52nd to the 64th. That hat trick plus one, part of a seven-goal Bethany onslaught, started Gerig on her way to the 12th-highest goal-scoring season in school history; Bethany scored 50 goals in 2009, the most since they played in the Crown Point semi-state in 2010.

October 1: Lincoln shocks the Bruins
A goal from Matt Weaver gave Bethany a 1-0 lead over NorthWood five minutes after halftime in Bethany's quest for a thirteenth win. But with mere seconds remaining on a rainy Thursday night at Bodiker Field, the ball slipped away from the feet of an unknown Bruin midfielder; NorthWood's Ryan Lincoln put it in the back of the net as NorthWood snatched a draw from the jaws of defeat.


January 21: Jordan beats the buzzer
Despite Seth Kauffman's 25 points that gave Bethany a ten-point lead with just over five minutes top lay, the final thunder in a matchup of two top-20 teams went to Canterbury's Jason Jordan. The 6'2", dreadlocked junior drove the lane and hit a 10-foot floating jump shot with 16 seconds remaining to give the Cavaliers a 55-54 lead. After a Bethany timeout, Seth Kauffman missed a layup and Hamilton Thorne erred on the put-back attempt and Canterbury escaped the Menno Lands with a victory.

2009-10's Most Memorable Moments

Last night, baseball state championship games wrapped up IHSAA-sanctioned interscholastic sports for the 2009-2010 academic year. In just more than six weeks, fall sports teams will take to the field, course, and court to begin the 2010-11 year. But for those 42 days, we at Bleeding Bruin Blue will attempt to bridge the gap between seasons by looking back at the year that was.

Thus begins our attempt to chronicle the most memorable moments of this year. It was a year that saw one team win a sectional title and four more reach the finals, a set of seasons bookended by a four-goal performance from Emma Gerig and a pair of seven-run innings in a doubleheader against Howe.

These were just a pair of the events on my personal first list; having run out of digits on which to count them, I can assure you that there are more than enough to choose from.

To make your voice heard in this retrospect, send me an e-mail at senorloco1908 (at) gmail (dot) com and list your picks. You can put them in any order your choose; if you list the moments in order from the most memorable on down, please indicate that and the votes will be counted accordingly. If you feel the need to comment, go ahead and do that too. The deadline to nominate events will be 7:07 p.m. Goshen time on Wednesday, July 7, and the next week, we'll start counting them down one at a time.

You can nominate any number of events; all you have to do is list them.

Click here to put the wheels in motion.