As Sam Sees It<br>

This weekend Winslow High School will host the premier event of its wrestling season: the Doc Wright Invitational Meet. Teams from all over the state will participate. In the past, the best wrestling teams from all classifications have participated. You can certainly get your fill of wrestling action at this meet.

Has there ever been a better one two punch in girls’ basketball than the Begaii sisters who play at Winslow High School for Coach Don Petranovich? I certainly can’t think of any.

Nicole and Lindsey Begaii are almost always in double figures. Senior Nicole is as deadly a three point threat as you will find anywhere. She has been that since she was a freshman. The rest of her game has steadily improved until she is quite capable of taking the ball to the hole if pressured on the outside.

Sophomore Lindsey is taller and a dominating force inside. She can shoot the trey as well, but does most of her damage around the basket. She has some great post moves.

Both of these girls are virtually automatic from the charity stripe. It is not unusual to see that one or the other or both have shot 11 of 12 or eight of nine from the line.

There will be college scouts interested in both of these players. It will be interesting to see if they wind up at the same school.

The Fiesta Bowl was truly a game for the ages. Ohio State, Miami, Tempe and even the Bowl Championship Series came away looking good. Unfortunately, it was marred by a controversial call at the end of the first over time.

Ohio State played a wonderful game. The Buckeyes controlled the tempo and were within a last play field goal of winning the title in regulation. You will seldom see a better performance by a quarterback than that turned in by Craig Krenzel of Ohio State.

Miami was not at its best until their backs were against the wall. The drive for the tying field goal was a thing of beauty. The unflappable Ken Dorsey showed why he had only lost one game in his entire college career.

In another era, this game would have ended in a tie. Perhaps it should have. The Buckeyes played well enough to win and were deserving of their championship. Still, if what should have been the last play of the game (as it was, the next to the last play in the first overtime) had been called correctly, Miami would have won. The Hurricanes definitely did not deserve to lose (neither did Ohio State).

Miami gained more respect in this loss than they had in most of their previous victories. The university that sent obnoxious, trash-talking teams and arrogant coaches into previous bowl games sent a very respectful and polite group of players and coaches into this year’s contest. The fact is most of the complaints about the controversial call have come from sports broadcasters and writers, not the Hurricanes or their coaches.

Maybe the Hurricanes should be included on a special list of teams that won championships only to have them taken away by poor officiating. For starters, the Hurricanes would join the 1985 St. Louis Cardinals (a correct call at first base on what should have been the last play of the sixth game would have given the Cardinals the championship later “won” by the Kansas City Royals), the Sacramento Kings (who would have won the NBA Western Conference Finals and likely the title as well had game six been anywhere near decently officiated) and last year’s Oakland Raiders (victims of the infamous “tuck rule” that negated Tom Brady’s fumble, called it an incomplete pass and gave the New England Patriots a play-off victory).

Officiating is part of the game, though, and officials are human. The play in question in the Fiesta Bowl looked obviously wrong to me, but there are those who think it was correct. At least we got the best two teams to play this time.

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