Class A

Championship

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Once more, from the "Yes, DODDS student-athletes can do it!" file ... click here for a link to former Nile C. Kinnick volleyball and soccer star Frances Zukowski's college Web page and here for ex-Red Devils football and baseball star Chad Atchley.

Zukowski is now playing volleyball at Cuyamaca Community College of Rancho San Diego, near El Cajon. Atchley is now a linebacker at Southern Arkansas University, an NCAA Division II school in the Gulf South Conference.

Never before had an Osan American runner won the season-ending Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference cross-country meet, until last Saturday, when junior Josh Hanks did it in the driving rain at International Christian-Uijongbu.

Never before had a Seoul American tennis team won a KAIAC title since the league formed 37 years ago, until last Friday at Yongsan International School-Seoul, when the girls, paced by 2007 Far East Tournament singles champion Kennedy Allen, accomplished the feat.

Musings, mutterings and the occasional schmahts as Ornauer basks in the tropical air after 2 1/2 weeks in the mainland, and prepares for Far East championship week starting Saturday in Daegu:

-- Do they get any better than the last two weeks between Osan American and Daegu American? First, the Warriors very nearly fashion a comeback after trailing 28-14 on Oct. 24 at Osan; then, the seesaw affair that was Friday's 30-28 overtime victory that sealed Class A title-game host rights for Daegu.

-- Any wonder why the call the Warriors the Cardiac kids? They came from behind for four of their six victories this season, including Friday's game for the ages.

-- Each side had chances to win in the closing seconds.

Sometimes, some things that a star says or does to put a rival on the right track mean far more than victory.

Take Seoul American cross-country runner Thomas Kim, who had been unbeaten the entire season until last Saturday's Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference meet at International Christian-Uijongbu. Osan American's Josh Hanks beat Kim in a sprint to the tape in the last few hundred meters.

But courtesy of an e-mail from Osan coach David Hemmer is the "untold story" of the meet.

OK, campers, as promised, a real trick or treat, as SportsBlog Nation begins its own 12-team all-inclusive football SportsBlog Championship Series on Halloween night. First-round games:

Game 1 -- No. 12 Singapore Falcons at No. 5 Zama American.
Game 2 -- No. 9 John F. Kennedy at No. 8 Yokota.
Game 3 -- No. 10 Robert D. Edgren at No. 7 Father Duenas Memorial.
Game 4 -- No. 11 Simon Sanchez at No. 6 Guam High.

And awayyyyyyyyy we go:

Game 1 -- Danny Albanese returns opening kick for touchdown, runs for two more and catches a TD pass as Singapore's diversity matches Zama's Wing-T score for score in the first half.

To correct a bit of history that I kept getting wrong ...

Zama American's football team next Saturday will try to become the first Trojans boys sports team to win a Far East team title of any kind since the 1978-79 Zama wrestling team. A search of the archive revealed this; up until now, I'd thought it was the 1962-63 boys basketball team.

Daegu American is attempting to erase a long title drought of its own. Not since the 1989-90 Warriors basketball team has Daegu won a Far East boys team title.

UPDATED AT 5:15 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31:

-- Daegu American 30, Osan American 28, OT: Antoine "Flash" Feagin three TD runs, three two-point runs, including the game-winners. Warriors coach Ken Walter called it the greatest game he's ever seen. Certainly the greatest game in DODEA Korea league's seven-season history.

-- Zama American 21, Nile C. Kinnick 14: Trojans' running game continues to struggle, but Mike Jorgenson's QB play, Ashton Norwood's takeaways enough to give Zama its first regular-season league title in school history.

-- American School In Japan 39, Yokota 6: The bad news for the rest of Japan is, QB Hayden Jardine ain't going anywhere.