2010 Door County Sports Moments to Remember

While we don’t offer comprehensive sports coverage in the Pulse, we certainly appreciate the achievements of Door County athletes in all manner of sports. Here are 10 moments worth noting from the halls of Door County competition in 2010, in no particular order.

1. Ellison Bay marathoner Wendi Ray finishes 22nd among women at the New York City marathon. Her time of 2:39:15 puts her sixth among American Women in one of the most competitive marathons in the world.

2) The Sturgeon Bay Clippers Boys Soccer team makes its first run to the state tournament in Milwaukee. The Clippers came up one game short of the championship game, falling to The Prairie School of Racine 2 – 0.

3) Jason Daubner bowls a perfect 300, becoming just the 8th player in history to do so at the Sister Bay Bowl – and the first member of the Willems family, owners of the Bowl, to do so.

4) Gibraltar athletics experiences its greatest success in 40 years in the 2009-10 school year. After its soccer team won conference and the football team advanced to the playoffs for the first time in the fall, the winning continued in 2010. The boys basketball team won 17 games, its most since 1969, while the spring brought Packerland Conference titles in track and baseball, the latter of which went unblemished in conference play.

In the fall of 2010, the girls volleyball team brought the school’s most un-anticipated success, taking home Gibraltar’s first-ever Regional Volleyball Championship.

5) Jason Ryf of Oshkosh wins his 3rd straight Door County Half Marathon in May with a time of 1:09:51. Laura Ankrum, the 2008 women’s winner, returned to the top of the women’s division with a time of 1:29:40.

6) After years of success on the softball field and the cross-country course, Sevastopol High School athletics achieves success in other sports. Sevastopol’s football team makes the playoffs for the first time after decades of futility, coming up agonizingly short of a victory in a 12 – 8 loss to Coleman, and Ben Ehlers places third at the Wisconsin State Golf Meet.

7) Kolberg romps through the Door County League Baseball season, but they bow out in the playoffs. That makes room for Egg Harbor to claim the title, defeating Washington Island and their venerable pitcher Mark Woerfel in the championship game.

8) Green Bay’s Mike Gilliam out-duels Peninsula Golf Course employee Aaron Slaby in the longest playoff in the history of the Resorters’ Match Play Golf Tournament (believed to be the longest running match play tournament in the USA). Gilliam wins a 9-hole playoff for a birth in the championship match.

9) Penny Olson of Jacksonport takes the gold medal for Women’s Racewalking in her age group in the 31st Wisconsin Senior Olympics in Milwaukee. Olson won the women’s age 65 – 69 group with a time of 11:46, qualifying her for the National Senior Olympics in Houston, Texas June 16 – 30, 2011.

10) The Hitching Post wins the women’s softball tavern league for the gazillionth year in a row.