What a Butler County sports year we had as we say goodbye to 2017.

Elsewhere in this section are the top 15 county sports stories of the year, as voted by the Butler Eagle sports staff.

Some of the items not on that list include Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic’s boys soccer team allowing nine goals all season in making the state finals, Butler’s Noah Beveridge winning the WPIAL cross country title, Mars’ Taylor Hockenberry winning her third straight WPIAL diving title, Mars baseball reaching its first-ever WPIAL title game, Scott Vice winning the Butler Eagle Amateur golf tourney in his own backyard, Seneca Valley’s Louis Newell placing secind in PIAA wrestling, I could go on and on ...

You get the point.

Quite a year.

When I look back on events that I had the privilege of witnessing myself, two basketball games come to mind.

Both were one-point decisions that literally came down to the final second. What followed both games was ironic as well.

Butler’s boys traveled to unbeaten Pine-Richland and lost 56-55, victimized by Phil Jurkovec’s put-back of an errant shot at the buzzer. The game had been tied seven times and Jurkovec’s game-winner marked the 11th lead change.

The bucket was originally ruled to come after the buzzer, which would have given Butler the win.

The officials convened at mid-court, ruled the bucket good and the Golden Tornado had a heartbreaking loss.

It wouldn’t be the first.

Those two teams would meet three more times in 2017. The Rams won each one, a 64-59 victory at Butler, a 72-61 win in the WPIAL Class 6A fibnals and a 64-58 verdict in the state quarterfinals.

The outcome of all four games was in doubt with less than two minutes to play.

The other game was the District 9 girls basketball title game involving rivals Karns City and Moniteau at Clarion University.

The Gremlins won the contest, 36-35, for their fourth consecutive district championship. It enabled KC seniors Mackenzie Craig and Alyssa Gibson to become the first two Gremlins to be part of four district basketball title teams.

Livia Andreassi stuck back her own missed shot before the horn to give KC the win. The loss was a cruel one for Moniteau as neither team ever had a double-digit lead in the contest.

The Warriors had a pair of 1,000-point scorers on the floor in Kristina DeMatteis and Alazia Greaves. Greaves was battling the flu bug on this night and gamely fought through it.

Steve Andreassi, Livia’s father, was on the KC bench as an assistant coach and saw his daughter’s game-winning bucket up close. The win was Karns City’s 90th in four years.

Dave Kerschaumer resigned as head coach after the season and Steve Andreassi is now Gremlins’ head coach for his daughter’s senior year.

Memories, indeed. Let’s build some new ones.

Happy New Year!

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle