Column: Justin Time
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
It’s not only time to recognize the Top 10 of 2008, it’s also time to thank our athletes and teams for making us look really good time after time.
Two area basketball players are the latest to make us at the Packet feel so lucky.
The Montgomery High School girls basketball team played too late Monday night to get their holiday tournament result in Tuesday’s paper, though there was a feature on MHS for the issue. It concerned Carlee Rosenthal’s comeback from a collapsed lung.
Little did we know that as the Packet was printing, she was dropping a career-high 17 points to help the Cougars claim the tournament championship.
She wasn’t the only local player who made the Packet look very good on Monday night. Up in the Bronx, N.Y., West Windsor-Plainsboro South graduate Becky Peters put up a career high 24 points, and had 11 rebounds to pace the Fordham University women’s team to a 70-51 win in the championship of the Fordham Holiday Tournament. For her second straight double-double, the freshman guard was named Most Valuable Player.
At the end of last winter, Peters was named the Packet Girls Basketball Player of the Year, a rarity in an honor usually reserved for a Hun School player. We were convinced that Peters’ senior season was better than anyone else’s 2007-08 season. She’s making that selection look good by helping Fordham, which was winless last year, to a 7-6 record. It is the latest they have been above .500 since the 2002-03 season.
Even though this year has no effect on last year’s selection, it helps us sleep easier knowing that we made a good choice.
In the winter last year, we passed on a little information about David Zhuang after he wrapped up one of three spots at the United States Olympic Trials. After the article appeared, we were happy to see the West Windsor resident go on to claim a top three spot at the North American qualifier that sent him to the Beijing Olympics in his native China.
Two games into the fall, we talked to an MHS girls’ soccer defender. She talked about how the Cougars had passed an early test in the season opener. After 20 games, the story was the same. MHS passed test after test to win a pair of championships for the first time in program history.
We don’t always get things right, but it gives us a little thrill to see an athlete or team we feature do well shortly thereafter. If we’re arrogant enough, we can even imagine that they don’t want to let us down.
Letdowns were few and far between during the last year. Instead, we’ve had a few too many accomplishments to write about them all in the detail they deserve. It has also made narrowing a year’s worth of dynamic stories to just 10 a lot more difficult. There were really fine accomplishments and important stories from last year that just didn’t make the cut.
There’s always next year for new storylines. There will be plenty of opportunities again beginning this winter, for athletes and for the Packet. Next year will once again provide plenty of chances for us to thank you for making us look good in 2008.

