The end of a year is upon us.

It is a time to cherish the memories.

And it is a time to kick away the forgettable moments.

Like getting Covid, BAD.

And watching my Kansas Jayhawks win a national championship in basketball, GOOD.

Watching Iowa football struggle to score a touchdown, BAD.

Watching Iowa’s Caitlin Clark score from just about anywhere on a basketball court, GOOD.

So, let’s sit back, take a couple of sips of the bubbly and just enjoy the sporting moments of a year gone by.

I’ll contribute 10 of them.

Unbeaten moment

The gym was packed at Mid-Prairie one night last February when the Golden Hawks finished off their regular season in boys basketball with a 65-50 win over Monticello. It was their 21^st straight win in a magical season.

Senior starters Carter Harmsen and Will Cavanagh hugged as the final seconds ticked off the clock and Golden Hawk students prepared to storm the court on a historic night in Wellman. Jack Pennington, another senior, scored a game-high 24 points and then reminisced after the game about attending Golden Hawk games as a kid and waving a Mid-Prairie banner in the air.

The Golden Hawks went on to win three more games for a school-best 24-0 record before falling to old friend Monticello of the River Valley Conference in the first round of the state tournament.

Championship run

Mitzi Evans of Mid-Prairie fell to the ground in triumphant exhaustion at Drake University’s Blue Oval last spring, winning a state championship in the girls 800-meter run and beating her personal record by four seconds.

She held off Van Meter’s Clare Kelly for the win with a time of 2 minutes, 12.56 seconds. And it was a battle all the way to the finish.

“My body felt horrible,” Evans said. “Everything else, I felt really happy.”

The win by Evans, combined with a victory in the 400 and a win in the 3000 by teammate Danielle Hostetler, helped the Mid-Prairie girls win their fourth consecutive state track title.

Digging her game

A volleyball is headed over the net and toward the floor.

Mid-Prairie sophomore libero Dakota Mitchell dives to save the ball.

Pick your match. It happened all the time this past season. And it’ll happen all the time next season.

The Golden Hawks won 27 matches and were just one win away from reaching the state tournament. Mitchell’s 630 defensive digs ranked first in Class 3A among all sophomores.

Soccer showdown

The boys soccer teams from Mid-Prairie and West Branch met one day last spring, and it was a war between rivals who just don’t really like each other.

I know. I was one of the referees.

Instead of attacker versus defender in the box, it was football linebacker versus football linebacker. I remember carding two players plus a coach. Not a fun day.

Still, a 2022 moment.

Soccer Ice Bowl

And let’s talk about the cold.

The wind-chill temps hit 36 below zero this past week, which immediately brought back memories of Highland High School soccer.

Again, I’m the referee.

Now, it wasn’t 36 below zero last April when I found myself in the middle of a soccer game at Highland, but it was really windy and really cold and it was snowing when it wasn’t sleeting. Maybe 30 below?

Oh, please, let’s have a warm April in 2023.

Scoreboard smash

Then, there was the day a Lone Tree softball player took out the scoreboard on the night of the team’s last home game last July against New London.

The smack and smash swing, let’s call it.

And, yes, a Lone Tree home run.

Full speed ahead

Did Highland’s Sarah Burton ever get caught stealing?

This is how it went one of the days I was watching the Huskies: Burton reaches base on an infield hit. She steals second base. She steals third. Then, she dances home to score on whatever, with whatever being an infield out or an infield hit or an outfield fly.

Burton stole 37 bases last summer and only got caught once, and was the only sophomore in the Southeast Iowa Super Conference North to have that many steals.

Maddie’s 1,000

Maddie Nonnenmann, a 2022 Mid-Prairie graduate who led the Golden Hawks girls basketball team into a Class 3A regional championship game last winter, made school history on the last day of January in Washington. She scored a basket in the final moments of a 20-point win for her 1,000^th career point.

The game was stopped to preserve the moment and her younger sister, Maya, was one of the first ones to greet Maddie with a celebratory hug.

Maddie was a game changer. She kept playing even after breaking a bone in her pinky finger, and ranked third in the River Valley South in scoring.

Hoops pain

Talk about a game changer. Faced with the end of the season in a Class 1A girls basketball tournament game last February, Highland’s Abby Stransky took the game over in the fourth quarter of a battle against Lisbon that the Huskies eventually won in overtime.

But in the final moments of regulation, Stransky went down hard while fighting for a loose ball and grabbed her knee. She had torn an anterior-cruciate ligament. She led the Huskies with 21 points and five 3-pointers.

She spent the summer in the softball dugout, helping coach Carrie Wieland with whatever was needed, didn’t miss a game.   

Cain’s TD leap

Let’s end this with my weak moment.

I took one minute to grab a hot dog one football Friday night in Williamsburg, and that’s when Mid-Prairie senior Cain Brown leaped high in the corner of the end zone to grab a touchdown pass in a Class 2A playoff game.

As it turned out, that was the last touchdown of Brown’s high school career. I owe you a hot dog, Cain.

Brown had 27 catches for 574 yards and 6 touchdowns last fall, many of them coming on those vertical leaps of his. That should be no surprise. Brown leaped 6 feet, 4 inches to place fourth at the state track championships in the spring.

News columnist Paul Bowker can be reached at bowkerpaul1@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @bowkerpaul