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Best/Worst Sports Moments of 2025

For the 16th consecutive year, I am publishing an account of my top 10 best and worst sports moments of the past year.  Scroll through the blog archives from late December or early January of each year if you want to see the previous editions. Keep in mind that these are given from a purely subjective viewpoint.  When I say “best/worst moments” I’m not talking about great or horrible sporting events.  I’m talking about moments that affected me the most positively or negatively.  Overall, this was a below average sports year for me with the bad moments outweighing the good. Without further ado, here are my best and worst sports moments for the year 2025.

Best Moments:

1UNCW wins CAA tournament title and returns to the Big Dance for the first time in 8 yearsMarch 11

During my first year living in Wilmington (2016-17), the local Seahawks dominated the CAA and made the Big Dance! Then Kevin Keatts left to go to NC State and the program took a major step back. Then, after several close calls, Takeyo Siddle was finally able to get this past year’s Seahawk squad to the promised land and back into the Big Dance where they fought valiantly against a loaded Texas Tech squad. This was a moment I had been looking forward to for several years that finally happened in 2025!

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2Seattle Mariners win epic 15 inning Game 5 of the ALDSOctober 10

This game holds this lofty position becuase I attended it in person and it was the best postseason game I have attended in any sport, aside from the 2016 NCAA men’s basketball championship game! The picture above is my wife and I’s reaction to the final play as captured by the Mariners fan cam. It is also really cool to be able to say I was at the longest winner take all MLB postseason game of all-time. Moreover, I want to point out how much of a true a coast-to-coast sports fan I am with the # 1 moment on this list occurring on the southeast coast of the U.S. and the # 2 moment occurring 3,000 miles away on the northwest coast of the country!

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3Wake Forest men’s tennis wins national championship (11th team title in school history)May 19

I wasn’t able to attend this Demon Deacon national title like I was for the program’s first NCAA tennis title in 2018. However, any time “Little Ol’ Wake Forest” has it has been called takes home an NCAA Division 1 national championship, it is a moment worth celebrating.

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4Celebration Saturday: Wake beats # 14 Virginia to clinch bowl eligibility; Kentucky blows out Florida; Indiana beats Penn State in thriller; Alabama knocks off LSUNovember 8

The cyclical nature of being a sports fan is quite strange. Some days everything goes wrong and all your teams lose. Other days everything goes right and all your teams win. Saturday November 8th, 2025 was one of those days where all was right in the world, as my Wake Forest Demon Deacons stunned the 14th ranked Cavaliers on the road, handing them their only ACC conference loss in the regular season. In addition, Kentucky dominated Florida to earn their fourth win in five tries against the Gators after losing 33 of the previous 34 meetings between the two teams. Both of these wins unquestionably served as the biggest victories of both Wake and Kentucky’s 2025 regular seasons. Other good results from this day in football include Indiana holding off Penn State 27-24 thanks to an incredible final minute touchdown catch and Alabama dispatching rival LSU.

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5Houston comes back from the dead to upset Duke in the Final FourApril 5

I am not exactly a huge Kelvin Sampson/Houston Cougar fan, but any time a # 1 seeded Duke team loses a big game they shouldn’t in the NCAA tournament, I am going to be pretty happy. This come from behind win was particuarly stunning, as the Blue Devils held a 9 point lead with 2:30 left in regulation and then later a 6 point lead with 32.4 second left!

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6Madison Keys wins 1st ever grand slam title at Australian Open with nail biting win over Aryna SabalenkaJanuary 25

I have always been a Keys fan, and like most U.S. tennis fans, I had kind of come to the conclusion that she was going to be one of those really good pro tennis players that never won a grand slam title. However, she shockingly broke through in January of 2025 in her 17th year on tour by winning the Australian Open final over the top seeded and heavily favored Aryna Sabalenka.

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7Murray State beats Duke to complete Cinderella run to NCAA College World SeriesJune 9

NIL may have hurt “the little guy” in NCAA football and basketball, but Cinderalla is alive and well in college baseball, aas 4th seeded Murray State came out of nowhere this year to make a spectactular run to Omaha. The fact they were able to knock off the hated Duke Blue Devils in the super regional to get there, made it that much sweeter.

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8Coco Gauff wins French Open title with epic 3 set come from behind win over Aryna SabalenkaJune 7

Aside from the aforementioned Madison Keys/Aryna Sabalenka Aussie Open Final, American Coco Gauff’s triumph over Sabalenka in the French Open final was the match of the year in women’s tennis. Gauff was able to win this match and take home her first French Open title in come from behind fashion, and in the process, she became the first American, male or female, to win the French Open since Serena Williams in 2015.

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9Andrew Matthews wins 2025 Cub Scout Pinewood Derby for his Wolf DenMarch 23

Those of you who have read this annual write-up before know that I always like to include a personal competition on this list. This year, I have to include my son’s Pinewood Derby title, which serves as the ultimate elementary school “redemption story”. In 2024, he had four children in his particular den and the scout troop awarded trophies to places 1-3. He, of course, finished fourth and was the only kid not to get a trophy, which as you might imagine, was quite devastating, for a first grader. This past year though, we upped our craftsmanship efforts and created a “Wake Forest” themed car that didn’t just finish in the top three, but actually won him first place in his particular Wolf Den.

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10Prairie View A & M football wins SWAC ChampionshipDecember 6

Those people that really know me as a sports fan know how infatuated I was in the 1990’s with Prairie View A & M’s NCAA record 80 game losing streak. I have always cheered for the Panthers, in both football and basketball, because of that, so it was great to see them win their second-ever SWAC championship earlier this month which earned them their first appearance in the Celebration Bowl.

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Worst Moments:

1November Nightmare: Wake and South Carolina football get destroyed. Blue Jays lose heartbreaker in Game 7 of the World SeriesNovember 1

This was the antithesis of my best event # 4 which is described above. The Saturday before those November 8th triumps, I had a horrible day in multiple sports as Wake Forest football got annihlated by Florida State by a score of 42-7 and South Carolina football continued to falter with a 30-14 loss to Ole Miss. The worst loss came in baseball, however, as the Blue Jays lost Game 7 the World Series in about as hearbreaking of a fashion as imaginable, by blowing a ninth inning lead at home against the Dodgers.

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2September Sadness: Wake Forest football loses overtime heartbreaker to Georgia Tech and US gets destroyed in Ryder CupSeptember 27

As you can see, I had several bad Saturdays watching games in my new sports room this fall, as Wake Forest got screwed out of a sure-fire home upset win over Georgia Tech at the same time the United States got destroyed on home soil in the Ryder Cup. Other bad results from that day include Ohio State’s win over Washington andTennessee’s come from behind triumph over Mississippi State.

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3New Year’s Nightmare: Arizona State loses overtime heartbreaker to Texas ond Oregon gets destroyed by OSU in CFP QuarterfinalsJanuary 1

The 2025 sports year got off to a rough start with the results in the New Year’s Day CFP Quarterfinals. First of all, Arizona State just needed a 4th and long stop in overtime to upset a heavily favored Longhorn squad. Unfortunately, Texas scored on that 4th down play and went on to win the game in double overtime. This result was particularly heartbreaking becuase it harkened back memories of the 1997 Rose Bowl where the Sun Devils had a national championship taken from them by several controvesial pass interference calls that led to a game winning Ohio State touchdown in the final minute of play. Later that day, Ohio State would go on to blowout # 1 seeded Oregon to derail the Duck’s best chance at winning a national title in over a decade.

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4Seattle Mariners lose Game 7 of ALCS to Toronto Blue Jays in heartbreaking fashionOctober 20

The Mariners’ dream season, which I was intimately apart of as described in best moment # 2 above came, came to a crashing halt with this come from ahead loss by Seattle in a series they led both 2-0 and 3-2. The fact that the Mariners’ superstar Cal Raleigh was left on deck when Seattle recorded its final out made this loss sting that much more.

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5November No Bid: Wake starts season on wrong side of bubble with heartbreaking loss to Michigan, Kentucky gets beaten by LouisvilleNovember 11

Wake’s drought of making it to the first round of the NCAA tournament has reached a shocking 16 years in duration, and despite Head Coach Steve Forbes’ best efforts, he can’t quite get us over the hump. That has never been more evident than to start the 2025-26 season when the Deacs lost two separate games by a single point to top 15 foes where they blew late leads. The first of these losses was to now the # 2 ranked (then # 6) Michigan Wolverines who enter the 2026 calendar year unbeaten. Michigan has blown out some of the best teams in the country, Gonzaga, San Diego State, Auburn, etc., but they should have lost to my Deacs. Neverthless, the Deacs squandered another chance to earn an NCAA tourney resume defining win on the same night that the Kentucky Wildcats faltered to their in-state rival Louisville for the first time in five seasons.

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6NFL Conference Championship Day Disaster: Chiefs and Eagles both win to advance to Super BowlJanuary 26

Nothing is worse than a Super Bowl rematch between two teams that you strongly dislike.

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7Ohio State wins Colllege Football Playoff National ChampionshipJanuary 20

Even though I predicted this to happen in both the preseason and right before the playoff began, it is never fun to see a hated evil empire win another national championship.

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8Wake Forest falls to 0-7 in games I have watched them play in PNC Arena and seals NCAA tournament failureFebruary 22

As a now 14 year resident of coastal North Carolina, Wake Forest’s closest road game for me is the Deacs annual matchup in PNC Arena against NC State. I have now gone to seven such Wake Forest vs. NC State games in Raleigh since graduating from Wake in 2008, and every single time, the Demon Deacons have lost. Worse yet, in several of those meetings, including this past February’s matchup, the Demon Deacons have been favored to beat the Pack. This past year’s defeat was particularly disheartening because it knocked Wake onto the wrong side of the NCAA tournament bubble. A place they have found themselves in each of the past four seasons.

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9Florida beats Houston to win NCAA basketball championshipApril 7

Though they were both # 1 seeds, Houston was the feel-good story of this year’s Final Four, as they tried to win their first national championship in program history and give longtime head coach Kelvin Sampson his first title as well. The Cougars seemed to have the Gators beat midway through the second half, but a late surge by Florida gave them the victory after Houston failed to get a shot off in the final four possessions. Just heartbreaking stuff…

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10Fantasy Football Failures: My wife and I collective go 0-5 in fantasy super bowls including a tiebreaker lossDecember 29

This last moment is still very fresh and raw occurring over the past few hours. In 2018, I thought my fantasy football fortunes couldn’t get worse, as I placed four different teams in fantasy super bowls in four different leagues and then proceeded to lose all four championship games. This year, my wife and I collectively beat that mark so to speark, as we had five fantasy super bowl teams between us (including her first two teams ever to make it to a fantasy super bowl), and we then proceeded to lose all five championship games. The loss in my dynasty league may be the most gut wrenching in the history of fantasy football, as I led the entire weekeknd over my opponent, until the second half surge by Matthew Stafford on Monday Night Football brought us to a tie to the hundreth of a digit (see scoreboard above)! The tiebreaker was highest playoff seed which did not go my way.

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