Mutterings and musings from Okinawa, as Ornauer can't contain his excitement at the prospect of a Mike Petty Track and Field Meet just days away:

-- Try this on: The top 10 finishers in the boys 100 meters at last Friday's Okinawa Activities Council triangular were separated by .82 seconds. The girls top six? By .63 seconds.

-- Shun Bowens' 11.15 was .03 seconds faster than the Mike Petty record of 11.18 set in 2006. He was part of a Kadena 400 relay team that clocked a 45.43 (!!!) last Friday. That's .15 seconds shy of the Petty record set last year.

Little movement this week, for many schools were on Easter break. Here we go:

Baseball and girls softball have yet to be added to the DODDS-Pacific Far East activities calendar.

The key reason: Money, or lack thereof. There simply isn't room in the budget, DODDS-Pacific's elders say, for baseball and softball in a fiduciary climate in which conferences, training and other activities have been slashed across the board. Not to mention a 7-year-old war on terror being fought on two fronts.

On the other hand, others argue, what is the high school experience without season-ending state championships in all sports, including baseball, the American national pastime, and its softball gender counterpart?

SportsBlog Nation campers:

This works the same way as basketball -- your ultimate "dream team" to don your school's soccer uniforms regardless of year. Position, name of player and year they graduated.

A couple of examples:

Kadena Panthers, Okinawa
FW-Katie LaGrave, Class of 2004
FW-Jennifer Abel, Class of 2007
FW-Lorraine Callos, Class of 1998
MF-Dianne Abel, Class of 2006
MF-Kelsey Decker, Class of 2007
MF-April Amargo, Class of 1999
MF-Alicia Larson, Class of 2006
MF-Jillian Bearden, Class of 2000
ST-Sara Ragland, Class of 2006
SW-Kim Lyle, Class of 2004
GK-Casey Gannon, Class of 2000

As promised, a bit sooner than I expected to do this ... the first appearance of high school soccer ratings in SportsBlog Nation.

As with basketball, and football in the fall, the ratings are based on strength of team, strength of schedule, individual talent, team talent, quality of victories and teams' history at Far East tournaments.

Shirt-tailing on the smashing success of the Basketball Best Fives of the Last 25 Years on this space, 'tis time we attempt the same thing with the spring sport of soccer.

Bear in mind that Far East tournaments in soccer have only been in existence since 1998, and the inception of Class A tournaments didn't occur until 2002.

So, we shall limit this to the Best Soccer Elevens of the Last 10 Years.

Let's hear it! Who are the best to ever suit up on the pitch for your school?

Center-forward
Left wing
Right wing
Center-midfielder
Right-midfielder
Left-midfielder
Stopper
Left fullback
Right fullback
Sweeper
Goalkeeper

No question, DODDS-Japan's developmental transition from slowpitch to fastpitch softball is the most unusual method ever seen in any sport in DODDS-Pacific's history.

Clinics and practice games designed to educate players, coaches and umpires on the differences between the two games and slowly bring everybody along to the point where they understand fastpitch and be ready to compete next year.

Some say that playing competitive games is the best way to prepare, no training like on-the-job training. Others feel that moving too quickly is the fastest way to kill the transition.

Play now or continue developing. Which is the better way?

Musings and mutterings after a weekend of dodging raindrops, when all sports in all areas saw action, one day past Idus Martiae and the 2,052nd anniversary of the demise of Julius Caesar (you can look it up. Gotta love Google):

Some may think the path from a Pacific-area high school to a college scholarship is too littered with obstacles to be traversed.

Too far for a coach or a scout to jump on a passenger jet to check out spoils that are too thin, when the same coach or scout can jump in a car and visit scads of schools within a four- or five-hour radius to see dozens of prospects. And you can't really judge what an athlete is truly like from a video or a scouting report.

Some have been successful going the Division I route. The names Shaquille O'Neal, Eric Zeier, Kevin Maxwell, Wesly Mallard and others come to mind.
True, you can count 'em all on the fingers of two hands, for the most part.

Hail to the winter season Athletes of the Quarter, wrestler Craig Bell of Matthew C. Perry and basketball point guard Monica Hayes of Kadena.

Not so much for what the stat sheet showed, Bell with his 37-0 record and first gold medal in Perry's history, or Hayes for her 10.3 points and 7.5 rebounds and Kadena's third Class AA Tournament title in six years.

For Hayes, it was about leadership, positioning everybody where they needed to be and showing by example what it takes to win, her coach Ken Hudson said.