As has become tradition at The Record-Courier, we take our last issue of the year to look back on the year that was. Along the way there were wins and losses, triumphs and tragedies, but in the end it lived up to everything we've come to know about sports in Carson Valley. Here are the headlines that stuck out the most to us from the past year:
It was a moment that shook the Douglas High athletic program, much less the entire Carson Valley community.
Tiger sophomore Molly Lahlum lost conciousness after finishing her heat during a swim meet at the Carson Aquatic Center on April 7.
She died two weeks later while in intensive care at Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno.
Lahlum, 15, was remembered by friends and family for her beaming smile and her infectious personality.
It was nearly a month before her teammates returned to the pool for competition, but in their first meet back, they swept the boys' and girls' Zephyr League team championships and 12 additional individual championships.
"It's been really hard," then-senior Cassie Parr said at the time. "The club team (Douglas Dolfins) and the high school team have kind of practiced off and on since that happened. A lot of us have been swimming with her since we were in fifth grade."
A week later, with one lane of the University of Nevada's Lomardi Center left vacant in Lahlum's memory, the Tiger swim team put on a performance for the ages - shattering four school records at the Northern 4A Regional Championships while raking in five individual titles and eight state berths. The girls' team was a narrow runner-up finisher in the regional team title standings, coming in just behind perennial powerhouse Reno High.
Wade Meddles may have cemented his place as the state's top high school distance runner ever with a third-place finish at the Foot Locker National Cross Country Championships in December.
The Sierra Lutheran High School senior, who will compete at Azusa Pacific University in Southern California next year, earned first-team All-American status with his 15-minute, 26-second run on the national 5K course.
It was the best time and top finish for a Nevada native at the national championships, and the first top-10 finish since Douglas High's Bryan Carrol accomplished the feat in the early 1980s.
In the spring, he took third in the boys' 3,200 at the 50th annual Golden West Invitational track & field meet in California.
Meddles also claimed his second-consecutive 2A state cross country title (posting the top time at any level in the state for the second year) and swept the state titles in his events during the track & field state championships in May.
He was named the 2008 Gatorade Runner of the Year for Nevada last January and is a near shoe-in for the same award this year.
For only the second-time since moving to the large-school classification in 1979, Douglas captured the regional crown in one of the big three boys' sports (football, basketball, baseball) with a 4-3 win over perennial powerhouse and archrival Reno in the Northern 4A Regional Championship game in May.
None of the athletes on the Tigers' roster were born the last time Douglas won the baseball regional title (1989). They won more games (31) than any other team in the program's 47-year history and posted the school's first-ever first-round state tournament win - a 9-5 upset win over Cimarron-Memorial in Las Vegas.
The Douglas pitching staff, led by senior standouts Tyler Hoelzen and Tyler May, didn't allow a single hit over the first 13 innings of the season, setting the tone for an impressive season.
The Tigers captured their third Sierra League title in five years and advanced to the regional title game for the second time in three years.
It was in the same breath one of the most unexpected and one of the most impressive invidual performances in the history of Douglas High School athletics.
Fresh off winning the Northern 4A Regional singles tennis title (something he was fully expected to do), Douglas sophomore James TenBroeck turned around and claimed the state singles title in Las Vegas.
TenBroeck went through the season without losing a set, including the two-week postseason stretch that concluded with wins over The Meadows' Max Novak, Centennial's J.C. Pauli and Bishop Gorman's Kyle DelRosario.
He became the first athlete from Douglas High to win the state title since Jim Anderson did it in 1974 and was believed to be the first male from Northern Nevada to do it in five to 10 years at least.
TenBroeck finished the year with a 20-0 record and pushed his career mark to 46-3.
To add to the story, TenBroeck's sister, Kari, pulled off an upset win over fellow Douglas High teammate and two-time defending champion Amelia Ritger in the girl's regional. giving Douglas three of the top tennis players in Northern Nevada.
After a breakout 2008 season that ended with a disappointing loss in the regional/state title game, the Douglas High girls' soccer team surpassed all expectations with a stellar 2009.
The Tigers, who by the end of the season weren't starting a single senior, rattled off a school-record 23 wins, won the Northern 4A Regional title and claimed the school's first state title in any team sport since 1999.
It also marked the first-ever contested state title in girls' soccer in Nevada as the NIAA allowed Faith Lutheran and Pahrump from the Southern 4A to compete in the fall this season. The move was made in an effort to attract the rest of the Southern 4A to the fall in the future.
It was a career performance from senior Minneah Holdridge that helped the Douglas girls' track team capture its first-ever 4A regional title in May.
Holdridge came up with a throw of 108 feet, 1 inch in the discus to take second behind teammate and eventual state champ Jessica Waggoner to give the Lady Tiger an needed push in the total points.
Douglas ended up winning the title by just two points over runner-up McQueen.
The 4x400 relay team of Cara Dunkelman, Kyra Barth, Tia Lyons and Halle Niehoff sealed the title with a fourth-place finish in the last event of the day.
Balcom-Miller, who only started for the Douglas baseball team as a sophomore in 2005 before moving to California, had a stellar sophomore year for West Valley College in 2009.
He posted 106 strikeouts in just 83 innings pitched for the Vikings and was selected in the sixth round of the MLB Draft by the Colorado Rockies in June.
He quickly made a name for himself in Pioneer League with Casper, Wyo., over the summer, posting the most dominant season by a starting pitcher the league ever had.
He was named the league's Pitcher of the Year in September after posting a 1.58 ERA and going 4-0 with 60 strikeouts and just 37 hits and 10 walks allowed in 57 innings. He was also one of 10 players recently named to the Topps Rookie All-Star Team.
In an answer to speculation of growing drug use among the student body, the Douglas County School District announced in the spring that all students involved in extracurricular activities at Douglas High would be subject to random drug and alcohol testing during the 2009-10 school year.
The Douglas Block D letterman's club, along with the school's booster club committed funds to support the start-up and annual maintenance of the program.
McQueen High School in Reno started a similar program the previous year in football, and Douglas followed suit.
2007 Douglas grad Keith Olson made his Division I collegiate debut in December with the Nevada Wolf Pack.
Olson, who was a four-year standout for the Tigers, intially signed with Northern Arizona out of high school, but transferred after struggling with ongoing foot injuries.
He announced that he would walk on with the Wolf Pack last spring and made his debut against Wagner on Dec. 19, during which he scored five points and grabbed four rebounds.
Coach David Carter he expects Olson will play a large role in the team's defensive strategies during conference games.
Three weeks before the close of the regular season, any hopes of making the Northern 4A Regional playoffs were quickly slipping out of the Douglas boys' soccer team's grasp.
Less than a month later, the Tigers were one of only four teams left standing in the state.
Douglas went 4-1-1 over the last month of the season, upsetting fourth-ranked Carson, tying eventual regional champion Manogue, beating No. 6 Wooster and sneaking into the playoffs with a 1-0 win over Fallon in the season finale.
From there, the Tigers caught fire.
Douglas beat High Desert League champ Reed in the first round on penalty kicks after two overtimes.
The Tigers came back several days later to blast defending regional champ Galena 4-1, clinching a spot in the state tournament.
While the season ended with losses in the regional championship (2-0 to Manogue) and state semifinals (1-0 to Las Vegas), Douglas was left knowing it had saved its best soccer for the finish.
It was the team's second trip to state in three years.
