A few thoughts while remembering that as quickly as the fall high school sports season is about to end, the winter season will begin.

* Forget for a second what ended Saturday when Scarborough beat Skowhegan 2-1 in overtime in the Class A field hockey state championship game.

Now think about what Skowhegan accomplished this season. The Indians went 17-1-0, shut out 11 straight opponents and allowed just one goal before Saturday's state final.

That is about as good as a season can get.

OK, go back to what ended Saturday. When Ellie Moran deflected in a shot in overtime, Scarborough ended Skowhegan's eight-year reign as Class A state champions.

This group of Skowhegan players may be the first in nine years not to win a state title, but what they accomplished is truly incredible. To deal with the pressure of an eight-year run on top -- to take everyone's best shot -- and finish with 17 wins, three goals against and suffer your only loss in overtime of the final game of the year ... Wow.

* Maybe more fun than the actual game itself is watching high school football coaches make decisions and seeing how they play out.

Joel Stoneton and his Winthrop coaching staff faced an interesting decision in their Campbell Conference Class C quarterfinal game Saturday at Lisbon.

Leading by a point, Winthrop had the ball at its own 35 with 1 minute, 55 seconds left when Lisbon called its final timeout.

After a 5-yard run by Eric Duplessis, Winthrop faced the fourth-and-1 at its own 40 and had a decision to make.

The Ramblers could go for it, hoping to get a first down and then kill the clock. Of course, if they didn't get it, Lisbon would have the ball in great field position, but with little time on the clock.

Or Winthrop could run the clock as far as possible, call timeout and punt the ball away, making Lisbon drive the field with less than a minute left and no timeouts.

Winthrop decided to go for it, and quarterback Travis Luce successfully rushed for the first down. The Ramblers took a knee twice to end the game and win 13-12.

"We (the coaches) were on the (headsets) and we decide to go for it because we had the momentum," Stoneton said. "That was the deciding factor.

"Then we sent the play in and hemmed and hawed about, 'Should we punt?' But the week before they had come off the edge and blocked one so if that happened, we would have given them the ball in great field position."

The decision was made easier by the fact that Winthrop had great success running the ball in the fourth quarter. The Ramblers gained 86 yards on the ground before Luce's sneak ended the game.

"That was a big part of it," Stoneton said. "There is no denying it, on offense, guys were running wild. And it was less than a foot."

That decision, of course, had to be made in 35 seconds. Glad I'm not the one who had to make the call.

"We trusted the defense if we didn't get it, but we trusted the offense that they would," Stoneton said.

* Speaking of strategy, I understand playing a dramatic shift against lefty pull hitters takes away base hits, but New York Yankee Johnny Damon showed off a tremendous flaw in this game plan in Game 4 of the World Series.

In a tie game, Damon singled in the ninth inning, in front of Yankee first baseman Mark Teixeira. A switch hitter, Teixeira hit from the left side against Philadelphia closer Brad Lidge and the Phillies went into a dramatic shift. Third baseman Pedro Feliz was stationed near the second base bag, with second baseman Chase Utley in short right field and shortstop Jimmy Rollins playing closer to where Utley normally would play.

Damon stole second base and Feliz covered. Damon beat the throw, popped up and took off for third.

Now that's a double steal.

Of course, with Feliz -- the third baseman -- at second, no one was in position to cover third. Sure, catcher Carlos Ruiz, Lidge or left fielder Raul Ibanez all could have covered third, but it still would have been a footrace to the bag. And I'm still picking Damon to win a footrace with any of those three players.

With a runner on third in a tie game, Lidge didn't dare throw his slider for fear it might get by the catcher and allow the go-ahead run to score. It scored anyway on an RBI double by Alex Rodriguez and a two-run single by Jorge Posada.

Playing that dramatic shift may take away a few base hits, but it also opens up a defense to what happened Sunday night. No one is in position to cover third, allowing a runner to advance two bases.

As much as Phillies manager Charlie Manuel has been questioned for not pitching Cliff Lee on short rest in Game 4, his worst decision may have been playing that silly shift in the most important moment of the season.

Scott Martin -- 621-5618

smartin@centralmaine.com