If Saturday's championship games in the 38th Hong Kong International School Holiday Basketball Tournament seemed familiar, well, the combatants were definitely familiar with each other.
Congratulations to the Seoul American Falcons boys on their first championship in the tournament, following their 68-66 edging of Kubasaki.
And a tip of the cap to coach Ken Hudson and Kadena, winners of this tournament for the second time in Hudson's five seasons, 47-40 over Seoul American.
Campers, click here to follow this week's 38th Hong Kong International School Holiday Basketball Tournament.
Talk about an All-Star cast: The defending champions of ALL FOUR of last February's DODDS-Pacific Far East High School Tournaments are in the house:
-- Faith Academy's boys won their third straight Class A tournament at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, but coach Toby Landers is having to make do this year without the services of three-time MVP Kirk Long.
Into my e-mail inbox came a missive from David Geiger, dad to former Seoul American and Brent International school superstar Ryland Geiger, with some updates on former Pacific high school star matmen.
-- Former two-time Far East tournament Outstanding Wrestler Zolboo Enhkbayar (Brent International, Philippines) now competes at 157 pounds for Southwest Oregon Community College at Coos Bay, Ore.
-- 2006 Far East tournament Outstanding Wrestler Steve Courtney (Kubasaki, Okinawa) wrestles at 165 for George Mason University.
-- Former Nile C. Kinnick stars John and Eric Olanowski (2001) are at the University of Missouri and Michigan State University respectively.
Based on the response(s) received to a prior post ... expect the first Pacific high school ratings at the close of December's games.
Unlike the voters in The Associated Press, USA Today/ESPN coaches and Harris polls, ORNY doesn't do preseason ratings.
The ratings will be posted here first on a conditional/experimental basis, Top Ten for both girls and boys. They will continue until just prior to the Far East tournaments, with a final end-of-season ratings just after.
If the response warrants, we'll see about getting them into the print version as well.
And dare ORNY rate the soccer teams during the spring?
Thank you for your overwhelming response!
She'd been thought of only as a rebounder as a freshman a season ago. But boy, oh, boy, people better figure out ways to stop Kadena's newest scoring machine when she takes to the court later this week in the 38th Hong Kong International School Holiday Basketball Tournament.
Aja' Walker, a sophomore, erupted for 36 points, nearly double her previous career high of 19, in the Panthers' 89-79 season-opening triumph last Saturday against Gushikawa, a Japanese team, at the Panther Pit.
Partly inspired by message traffic between coach Brian Donalson of Singapore American School and Marcus George of Ansbach, Germany, there is discussion about possibly staging a major weekend of football at a site to be determined over Columbus Day weekend.
This would in part mirror the Super Eight weekend, when all four DODDS-Europe football championship games are staged in the same location.
It would also certainly help Okinawa's Kadena and Kubasaki High Schools, which play far fewer games than the other leagues in the Pacific.
They need here something similiar to what Europe is planning to do in June, a football camp for high schoolers conducted by stateside coaches.
Discussion was held last spring about possibly staging a football camp in August for Pacific footballers, but that may not happen in the near future. It can't come soon enough, in my eyes.
What do you think? Should the football guys do something equal to what Europe will do in June, and should they flood university campuses from sea to shining sea with letters pleading for coaches to come run the thing?
Well, what do you, the SportsBlog Nation, think?
Should ORNY rank the basketball teams similarly to the football?
Who do we include?
The entire Pacific (to include APAC, IASAS and other non-Far East tournament conference schools)?
Or just those that participate in DODDS Far East tournaments?
Lemme know what you think. :)
If that's the last we've seen of seniors Avianca Manning and Kristina Queen and sophomore Gabriella Matautia (Hawai'i next year) on a volleyball court, they gave Seoul American a lot to remember.
Only a semifinal loss to eventual champion Christian Academy In Japan marred an almost otherwise-perfect slate for the Falcons during the week-long Class AA tournament on Guam.
Gutting out a sore right ankle suffered in Friday's semifinal defeat, Manning got it taped up and went back out there and helped pace the Falcons past Academy of Our Lady of Guam in straight sets.
With their second Far East Class AA volleyball tournament title in three years, Christian Academy In Japan really put a nice cap on what was an excellent fall season in Knights Nation.
MVP Kelsey Masuda and a strong supporting cast including Stephanie Hino and Nanae Ohki came away with a straight-sets victory over hard-luck George Washington of Guam in Saturday's championship match.
Put that together with CAJ's first Kanto Plain Association of Secondary Schools boys tennis team championship since 1974, led by the likes of Miles Peterson, a sophomore with strong blue-and-gold bloodlines -- his parents Jim and Hydi are CAJ alums.
Third place in the Kanto boys and second place in Kanto girls cross country standings ain't bad, either.
