The best of

sports in 2007
Folks around the nation,

state learned about

the High Country
By Steve Behr
sports@wataugademocrat.com

True history was made by those who played sports in Watauga County in 2007.

This region caught plenty of attention, both state and national, after the games its athletes played in 2007.

Fans from Michigan learned where Boone was located after a football game played on Sept. 1. The term three-peat was bantered around in December and one of Watauga’s best played in a football game that nobody from this county had played since 1980.

Confused? Hopefully the list of the top 10 athletic events in Watauga County will clear everything up.

10. Juniors roll on
Watauga’s Junior All-Star team reached the state tournament, which was played in Durham, this summer. Watauga, led by the hitting of Baker Stanley and the pitching of Matt Proffitt, won two games in Durham before being eliminated from the tournament. This team is likely to be the foundation of Watauga High School’s baseball team a few years from now.

9. ASU baseball reborn
Appalachian State’s baseball team finished fourth in the Southern Conference (33-26 overall, 14-13 SoCon) and posted its first winning record since 1991. The Mountaineers lost to UNC Greensboro in the first round of the SoCon tournament, but recovered and upset College of Charleston in the loser’s bracket. Elon eliminated the Mountaineers 9-4 the next day.

8. Watauga wrestlers
Watauga’s Savva Kostis (140 pounds) and Travis Coffey (119 pounds) both finished second in the state 4-A wrestling championships this past spring. Kostis will try for a state championship in 2008.

7. Fantastic fall
Watauga’s athletic department had an outstanding autumn with no less than five teams capturing Northwestern 4-A Conference championships. Watauga won, or shared, titles in football, boys cross country, boys soccer, girls tennis and volleyball.

6. Drafted
Former Watauga baseball standout Jonathan Greene was drafted by the Texas Rangers and played professionally for the Spokane Indians this summer.
Greene, an All-Southern Conference third baseman at Western Carolina, was one of five Catamounts drafted.
Also drafted, in the first round by the San Francisco Giants, was South Caldwell left-handed ace Madison Bumgarner, who faced Watauga nine times while at South.

5. NIT bound
Though Appalachian State’s men’s basketball team would have rather played in the NCAA Tournament, they accepted a bid as an at-large team into the NIT last year. The Mountaineers took out an ad in the Indianapolis Star with mascot Yosef at the NCAA’s committee’s door with a resume that included wins over Vanderbilt, Central Florida and Virginia in the San Juan Shootout.
However, they received a fifth seed in the NIT and traveled to Ole Miss, where they lost in the first round.

4. Back to the semifinals
Watauga’s trip to the state 4-A playoff semifinals in 2006 was a surprise. Their trip to the same game in 2007 was almost expected.
The Pioneers won a share of the Northwestern 4-A Conference championship, earned the No. 1 seed in the playoffs, and had two players, running back Eric Breitenstein and guard Casey Augustine, be named All-State by the Associated Press. The Pioneers, who beat Freedom and A.C. Reynolds for the second time in two years, beat Alexander Central, Central Cabarrus and Purnell Swett in the first three rounds of the playoffs before falling to Mount Tabor in the semifinals.

3. Shrine Bowl player
Eric Breitenstein broke Watauga’s streak of 27 years of not having a player in the Shrine Bowl by making the North Carolina roster this season. Breitenstein rushed for 2,625 yards and 28 touchdowns. He played fullback in the game, gaining 19 yards on one carry as South Carolina won the game 31-24.

2. Appalachian Invitational
Appalachian State’s 49-21 victory over Delaware in the Football Championship Subdivision finals cemented the Mountaineers’ place in championship history as a three-year dynasty.
The Mountaineers took a 21-0 lead on the Blue Hens, who had beaten No. 1 Northern Iowa two weeks before. Kevin Richardson ran for over 100 yards and Trey Elder, ASU’s popular backup quarterback, put an exclamation point on his four years as a Mountaineer by running 53 yards for the team’s final touchdown. ASU finished the season 13-2.

1. Upset for the ages
Though the 21st century is still young, Appalachian State’s 34-32 win over Michigan in front of over 109,000 at Michigan Stadium may stand up as the upset of the 21st century.
It was a game that saw Armanti Edwards shred a Michigan defense that seemed not to have a clue how to stop the spread offense.
It was a game that saw receiver Dexter Jackson catch two touchdown passes and find himself on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
It was a game that saw the Mountaineers block two Michigan field goals, the most famous one coming with six seconds left when Corey Lynch smothered Jason Gingell’s final attempt. Lynch’s block was ranked 13th overall by Fox’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period’s” list of top 50 college plays of all-time. (For the record, Josh Jeffries’ interception and then lateral to Derek Black of a Billy Napier pass that ended up in a defensive two-point conversion and a 16-15 ASU win in 2004 was 27th.)
It was a moment that did not win the Mountaineers a national championship, but it earned them more national recognition than what happened in Chattanooga, Tenn.