They endured a rigorous seven-week schedule, playing as many as six soccer matches in eight days, to get the regular season done in advance of Advanced Placement testing.

Call the AP testing period a two-week "dead zone" in which practice, matches and travel are limited, all in an effort to make as many allowances for testing students as possible.

It ends up becoming a go-stop-go scenario. Play at a breakneck pace, slam on the brake for a couple of weeks, then go again at a pell-mell during the week-long Far East tournaments May 18-22.

Read about the "dead zone" and the challenges it presents in this week's Home Team page.

Boys
1, Christian Academy In Japan (3-0) -- Only boys unbeaten left; two Kanto matches beckon this week.
2, Seoul Foreign (17-1-3) -- Eighth straight KAIAC Division I Tournament title completes season.
3, Kubasaki, Okinawa (5-6-2) -- Idle last week; three matches this week, including OAC season series-deciding tilt at home Friday.
4, Yongsan International-Seoul (16-2-1) -- Only two losses this season to SFS in the KAIAC Division I Tournament.
5, Kadena, Okinawa (9-9-1) -- A bit of a slump, four straight losses heading into the May Day showdown at Kubasaki.
6, Nile C. Kinnick, Japan (11-3-2) -- Red Devils rebounded nicely with a 2-0-1 week.
7, Yokota, Japan (8-5) -- 2-1 win over Zama vaults Panthers past Trojans.

Musings, mutterings and the occasional schmahts as Ornauer wipes the egg off his face and we creep within three weeks of Far East soccer championship week:

-- The expected barrage on the Okinawa Activities Council district track and field championship record book never took place. Only one of six records forecast to fall, did, the girls 400, as Zion Christian Academy's Sarah Wilson posted a 1-minute, 0.68-second clocking to beat the old mark by nearly a half-second. The other broken record was not expected, Kubasaki's Marquette Warren putting the shot 12.32 meters, .1 meters better than the old mark.

For a quick look at the KAIAC soccer tournament results, click here and here.

Comment upcoming.

Back in 2003, Taejon Christian International captured its first DODDS-Pacific Far East Boys Class A Soccer Tournament title, mainly on the shoulders of a carrot-topped striker from Toccoa Falls, Ga., named Andrew Wiese.

The junior transfer scored a Pacific region-best 30 goals, 14 of them in the Far East Tournament at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni. He was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player and was the last non-DODDS boys athlete to earn Stars and Stripes Athlete of the Quarter honors.

He returned to Toccoa Falls, but an injury shelved him for his senior season.

Assuming the weather holds up (70-percent chance of rain forecast), here's what records Ornauer believes will tumble, and which will be threatened, at the Okinawa Activities Council district track and field meet at 9 a.m. Saturday at Koza City Stadium:

-- Boys 400 relay: Gone. Kadena's Brandon Harris, Lotty Smith, Thomas McDonald and Shariff Coleman have already been posting 43-second times; seems like enough to send 44.2, set by Kadena in 2006, to the demolition heap.

-- Girls 400: Gone. Sarah Wilson of Zion Christian Academy clocked just over 59 seconds at the Mike Petty Memorial Meet on April 4; that's two seconds better than the 1 minute, 1.2 seconds run by Kubasaki's Serafina Smith in 2003.

Musings, mutterings and the occasional schmahts as KAIAC Division I soccer tournaments approach:

-- Yongsan International-Seoul may be fielding the best boys soccer team in school history, but -- for now -- the Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference Division I title still belongs to Seoul Foreign. Andrew Park (Pacific-high 22 goals plus 11 assists) and the Crusaders sealed coach Doug Farley's seventh straight regular-season title with a 2-0 win Wednesday at YIS-Seoul.

-- But you know the Guardians are going to come back loaded for bear at this weekend's KAIAC Division I tournament at Seoul American. Expect that Saturday championship match between the Guardians and Crusaders to be one for the ages.

Musings, mutterings and the rare bit of schmarts as we pass the DODDS-Japan Girls Softball Tournament checkpoint and move headlong toward the April 24-25 championship weekend:

-- The seed, at last, has been planted, at Naval Air Facility Atsugi's King and MacArthur Fields. With the seven-team DODDS-Japan Girls Softball Tournament in the books, proof positive that interarea tournaments can be put together and be successful, the discussion about putting a "true" Far East tournament on the map can be ramped up.

Boys
1, Christian Academy In Japan (2-0) -- Bulk of the Knights' Kanto schedule beckons
2, Yongsan International-Seoul (14-0-1) -- Just a Wednesday victory over Seoul Foreign away from the Guardians' first KAIAC title.
3, Kadena, Okinawa (9-5-1) -- Wins in first two matches back from the break, including a 4-3 home win over Kubasaki; OAC season series 1-1; May 1 rubber match beckons.
4, Kubasaki, Okinawa (5-6-2) -- More hard knocks vs. Kadena, Brasil FC and Courtney tournament.
5, Seoul Foreign (13-1-3) -- Crusaders took APAC tournament bronze last weekend in Beijing.
6, Zama American, Japan (9-3-1) -- Trojans move up a spot after sweeping E.J. King and Kinnick splits with M.C. Perry.