Musings, mutterings and the occasional schmahts as Ornauer sadly realises he can stop yelling "Corpsman!" for Stanley is not in the cards this evening:

-- MVP Taiyo Robertson and the Kadena Panthers boys finished their unbeaten run through the tournament in style, leading by as many as 25 points before settling for an 81-65 triumph over host Hong Kong International before an enthusiastic Saturday evening crowd at the HKIS high school gym.

-- Meanwhile, Faith Academy repeated its girls title, but not without a major scare. After trailing the Lady V's 43-16 at half, Heep Yunn unveiled an uncharacteristic man-to-man press, for which Faith was not prepared. Heep Yunn got it all the way down to three points, the final margin as the Vanguards and MVP Kelly Hardeman escaped 64-61.

-- Nice to see three generations of Hardemans in the high school gym for those two final games. Grandfather Tine, he of seven Pacificwide tournament titles, and his bride Jan, along with their youngest son, Todd, a Vanguards assistant coach, and their daughter-in-law Robin, and their grandchildren Kelly and Liz playing in Vanguards Navy blue and gold.

-- No, it only seems as if I've been around long enough to have seen Tine play (I was born the same year Tine finished 10th in the nation in scoring for Westmont College of southern California). But I consider it a tremendous privilege and honour just to know the man.

-- What a time for Kadena senior Kevin Paranal, who struggled all tournament, to enjoy a breakout game. He owned the inside before fouling out early in the fourth quarter. The host Dragons tried to stage a rally, but the mountain to climb was as high as some of the peaks in the Tai Tam area. Robertson may have been MVP, but Paranal was the story of Saturday's title game.

-- And Paranal provided us the play of the tournament. Grabbing the basketball and tumbling to his back (HKIS wanted a traveling call, Kadena wanted a foul call), Paranal realised the cavalry wasn't coming, so he tossed the ball upward as he was lying in the lane, kissing it off the glass and in.

-- So, was that the play of the tournament? Or was Dionte Waite's entry pass that conked Kubasaki teammate Gary Whitaker right in the back of the coconut, off the backboard and into the net during the Dragons' 75-70 fifth-place win over St. Mary's International?

-- Paranal shooting from his back? Whitaker using his head?

-- Are you kidding me?

-- I have never in my life seen two teams trade such extreme momentum shifts as I did Saturday in watching the Kadena-Kubasaki girls knockout game, won by the Dragons 69-67 on Christelle Abello's two foul shots with 3.0 left.

-- Kadena led 28-15 after one period and 34-21 early in the second quarter. Over the next 17 minutes, the Dragons outscored the Panthers 37-7 and led by 17 points after three periods. Kadena had lost two of its starters to foulouts. And the Panthers STILL clawed back, outscoring the Dragons 26-9 to tie it 67-67 in the closing seconds.

-- Yeah, that was yours truly doing the play-by-play during the live streaming video Web cast of that game. No, they didn't quite have to peel me off the ceiling of the middle school gym, but boy I came close.

-- You don't have to be crazy to do that sort of thing. But boy, does it help.

-- Game of the tournament? Absolutely.

-- An honor it was to help out the Dragonnet Web staff with their coverage of the tournament, BTW. It's the sort of thing that DODEA Pacific should be doing for all of its Far East sports tournaments. Live streaming video with real-time score updates as the games happen. I'll bet you'd find enough students at each host school who'd be willing to do that, if the right equipment were available at each.

-- To the tournament organizers, to the host families and to those who oversaw the hospitality room, many thanks and I'll be back there as often as you'll have me. To the folks along Stanley Market Road: See you next year.

-- What a fun week.

-- 85 days.