Monday's editions of Stripes feature a new twist on traditional year-in-review stories published by Stripes around this time of year.

This December, we take a look at the Pacific's top 10 military and high school sports stories of the year, as determined by Stars and Stripes' sports staff.

Some may disagree with the placement and/or the selections made, and maybe you might feel we left out one or two stories, but let's face it -- that's part of the fun of it.

Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts in our latest polls And Happy New Year to all!

Never before have Yokota's Warriors captured three Pacific-wide post-level basketball tournaments in one season. This year's group, paced by backcourt tandem K.D. Harris and Brandon Hawkins, might have a chance.

Hawkins netted 30 points and MVP Harris 28 as Yokota survived a tenacious Camp Casey squad to capture the title in the 22nd Osan Pacific-wide Holiday Tournament on Sunday at Osan Air Base, South Korea.

That gives Hawkins and Harris, along with weathered veterans Greg Streeter and Hamadi Stewart and Ricky Cabral, son of former Yokota three-time All-Force guard Ric Cabral, their second such title of the season. Yokota won its Warrior Classic in October.

Musings and mutterings from Yokosuka Naval Base as Ornauer props his eyes open with toothpicks and tries to figure out what to get the fam for Christmas:

-- Did the New Year Classic teams play too many games in too short a span? Champion Yokota played seven games and runner-up American School In Japan nine in a 36-hour span. Most, if not all, players and teams simply pulled up their bootstraps and dealt with it as best they could ... but you could tell people were dragging by tournament's end.

Want to meet Michael Spencer? Just look for him on a wrestling mat near you -- he'll be the one with the smile, on or off the mat.

Late of Wiesbaden High in Germany, where he earned a silver medal at 145 pounds and helped the Warriors to their first DODDS-Europe title in two decades last February, Spencer, a sophomore, transferred to Zama in August and he's picked up right where he left off.

If there's such a thing as a "good 1-7 record," coach Chris Clark says his Matthew C. Perry Samurai boys basketball team exemplifies just that.

The young squad, featuring just one senior in Justin Clement and piloted by a freshman point guard, Chase Dariso, is literally starting over from the ashes of its aborted 2007-08 campaign, short-circuited by illness, injury and an incident aboard the team bus.

They've put all that behind them and are looking ahead to bigger and better things. Read about it in this week's Home Team page.

They'd had their hearts broken four previous times in this decade trying to claim that ever-elusive Marine Corps Far East Regional Soccer Tournament title.

But after Friday's 4-2 triumph over Marine Corps Base Camp S.D. Butler in a rematch of the 2007 championship match, 3rd Marine Logistics Group of Okinawa is closing in on a title monolith.

Striker Victor Aguayo (14 goals) led the way, earning his second straight MVP trophy; he'd have won the Golden Boot if tournament organisers were giving one away.