Musings and mutterings from Okinawa as Ornauer continues to recover from his ritual April bout with jet lag. Man, this gets harder every year:

-- It took 10 school years, but Guam High finally can claim a boys volleyball victory over Father Duenas Memorial. The Panthers on Saturday rallied from a 25-21 first set loss to upend the Friars 25-17, 25-22 at FD's Phoenix Center. Mikel Nelson's 10 spike kills, Alan Diaz's five service aces and five defensive digs and Jason Taitano's 11 assists led the way for Guam High (4-1), which trails only George Washington (5-0) in the league standings.

-- Imagine throwing a one-hit complete game ... and losing? Senior right-hander Tristan Heckerl endured that pain in Seoul American's 9-3 loss Saturday to Daegu American at Camp Humphreys. He walked nine and saw eight runs score on passed balls, after giving up a first-inning bloop single. Heckerl's freshman brother Colton followed with a two-hitter in Seoul's 13-3 win over Osan American, easing Tristan's pain considerably.

-- This weekend's Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference Division I soccer tournaments at Seoul American are shaping up to be quite the battle between the host Falcons and Seoul Foreign. Their girls and boys teams appear to be odds-on the reach the championship. Can the Falcons' boys shut down Remco Rademaker, the Pacific's new single-season goal-scoring record holder with 51? And can the Crusaders girls rise up and shut down the Falcons' multi-faceted attack and senior striker Erica Anglade (22 goals)?

-- To understand American School In Japan's girls soccer team's early success (5-0 with a 27-0 goal margin), check out the defense, particularly the work of one Melissa Walker, a junior who transferred from Connecticut to Tokyo and plays a variety of defensive positions.

-- Best of wishes to Aubrey Ashliman, Zama American's sophomore striker who will likely miss the rest of the season following knee surgery Tuesday at Yokota hospital. Also likely down for the rest of the season is Seoul American boys midfielder Shawn Grandy who took a fall on his neck in the Falcons' 3-2 win at Taejon Christian International. He's wearing a neck brace and is up walking around, but every precaution is being taken. Get well, Aubrey and Shawn!

-- Among teams to keep an eye on, don't sleep on Robert D. Edgren's boys soccer team. They went 3-1 in last weekend's DODDS-Japan series vs. Matthew C. Perry and Nile C. Kinnick, after beginning the season 0-6-1. Brandon Massie scored four goals on the weekend, giving him eight total.

-- Are records ripe for the breaking at this coming Friday's Okinawa Activities Council district track and field meet? Organizer and Kubasaki coach Charles Burns went so far as to predict the boys and girls 100 and the 400 relay marks may be endangered. Kubasaki's Marquette Warren came with in two-hundredths of a second of the six-year-old boys 100 mark (10.62), while Lorien McKinney of Kadena clocked a 12.62, a second behind the record, but the first sub-13-second performance of the season.

-- That meet, by the way, will be held at an off-base venue for the first time in its 19-year history. Koza Civic Stadium will open its doors to the event, starting at 5 p.m. Friday, featuring Kadena, Kubasaki and Zion Christian Academy. It's believed to be the first event featuring primarily ID card holders in that venue since the old Kadena Falcons beat the Yokota Raiders 10-7 on Ray Rivers' 37-yard field goal in September 1982 in an interarea interservice football game.

-- A 21-game, two-season winning streak ends? Time for Nile C. Kinnick's baseball team to start another winning streak. They're capable.

-- Folks in Korea might remember Katrina Alsup as an eighth-grader starting in goal for Daegu American four seasons ago. She's now a junior on the other side of the globe, in Germany, and proving she's an accomplished scorer, tallying five times in a 7-0 win by Baumholder over Alconbury on Saturday.

-- The current Daegu American crop continues to better even their 2007 Class A Tournament title season -- the Warriors are 9-3-1, and two of those victories came last week, 1-0 over Osan American and Taejon Christian International, on goals in the seventh minute.

-- DID YOU KNOW? In case you were curious, yes, Major League Baseball pitchers have lost no-hit games. Ken Johnson of the Houston Colt .45s on April 23, 1964, became the first pitcher to lose a complete-game no-hitter 1-0 to Cincinnati. Baltimore's Steve Barber and Stu Miller in 1967 combined to toss a no-hitter, but lost the game 2-1 to Detroit. And now you know.