Musings, mutterings and the occasional schmahts as Ornauer halts, takes five deep breaths, then charges headlong into the winter sports season, just days away:

-- Talk about your emphatic runaways. Thomas McDonald and Shariff Coleman led an offense that ran with machine efficiency on Saturday, scoring two touchdowns each and Kadena's defense did the rest, holding Seoul American to 21 yards and two first downs in a 44-0 Class AA title-game romp.

-- It was the biggest margin of victory in the five-year history of DODEA Pacific Far East football playoffs. It was the first shutout in Class AA title-game history. It was the worst loss in Seoul American's history.

-- How dominant was Kadena's defense? The Falcons did not advance past their OWN 43 yard line, and they got that far twice in the first quarter.

-- How dominant was Kadena's offense in the two playoff games, including the 55-6 shellacking of Yokota in Monday's semifinal? Kadena did not attempt a single pass in the two games.

-- Right from the pre-game toss, it was pretty evident this would be Kadena's night. Seoul American won the toss and elected to kick off, apparently in an effort to have the Falcons' defense make the first statement, fire the first warning shot, etc.

-- That got torpedoed from the jump. McDonald took the kick and handed it to Rodney Goodson, who tucked himself neatly behind a convoy of black-and-gold shirts, untouched up the left sideline for a touchdown. 17 seconds into the game. Pretty as you please.

-- Never before had either the Class AA or Class A title game seen a running clock. That was the case from 3 minutes, 20 seconds into the SECOND quarter, with the score 35-0 Kadena. The game began at 6 p.m.; it was over just after 7:30.

-- Guess we had our drama-filled championship game seven days earlier in Daegu.

-- See what a difference a healthy DeEric Harvin, Rainey Daley, Bradley Forbes and Gerald McCloud make? Yokota looked very much as it did in winning its first five games with all four healthy, and very much unlike the team that stumbled in October with all four nursing injuries, when the Panthers clawed Guam High 24-7 in Saturday's third-place game.

-- Nearly a month ago, I watched Nile C. Kinnick's girls volleyball team take apart what was thought to be a rebuilding Christian Academy In Japan squad in three sets, with the Red Devils wrapping up their first Kanto Plain Association of Secondary Schools title in school history.

-- Quite honestly, I thought this young team, with promising players Erika Mine, Lana Hollands and Seiko Weaver, among others, needed more seasoning. No way, I thought, could CAJ possibly contend at Far East, not this year.

-- Fast forward to Saturday, with CAJ standing atop the champion's podium accepting the gold medal in the Far East Class AA Tournament at the posh Coral Reef Fitness & Sports Center on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

-- Did anybody see that coming? A No. 7-seeded team, the lowest seed since the inception of dual pool/division play for seeding purposes in 1995, rising up all the way to the champion's stand? With Mine being named MVP?

-- Didn't think so.

-- I don't think even the Knights did. Certainly, coach Tanya Hall said she was "shocked" that the Knights stepped up the way they did, beating Faith Academy in four sets for the title. "It's fun being an underdog, with nobody expecting you to win and then go take it all."

-- In just a decade, Hall and her predecessor Tom Hardeman have turned the Knights into a volleyball juggernaut. Hall helmed CAJ to the Class A title in 1999, won the Class AA title in 2001, and again in 2005 as Hardeman's assistant for one season. With such stars as Kelsey Hardeman, Kelly Hardeman and Kelsey Masuda in tow, CAJ also captured the 2007 title. That's five total since 1999.

99 days. Double digits at last.