Cleveland quarterback Carter Kopet describes them as the most embarrassing moments of his life. His team holding a lead, Kopet needed to execute a routine kneel down to secure a victory. Instead, he mishandled the snap and fumbled. Cut the kid some slack, though. He was only an eighth-grader. “I definitely had my ups and downs and I struggled a lot,” Kopet said of his 2013 season.

Before a midseason practice last year at South View Middle School, Edina swimmer Rachel Wittmer crawled inside a line pit next to one of the lanes in the pool in hopes of lightening the mood. It is a gimmick she had used in the past to disappear from her coaches and get some laughs from her teammates.

Last February, when then-junior Lauren Tix heard that her coach, Jeff Corkish, was resigning, she was filled with anger. Tix suddenly did not know what to expect. She was looking forward to a senior season with Corkish, the mentor of the Hastings girls’ hockey program for 17 years. Her agitated mind quickly calmed after Hastings activities director Trent Hanson named Josh Colvin as Corkish’s successor.

Paul Humboldt High School will play its first varsity football game since last Oct. 14 when the Hawks travel to Waterville-Elysian-Morristown High School on Friday for a game not originally on either team's schedule. Officials at Waterville-Elysian-Morristown learned last Wednesday that its homecoming game opponent, Gibbon-Fairfax Winthrop, had forfeited after a school investigation of a hazing incident involving players.

During a routine Thursday at school on Sept. 22, Lauren Ferg began to feel a sharp pain in her abdomen area. With her mind on more immediate issues, including in her forefront, like homework and the pursuit of a conference tennis championship, the sophomore Eagan tennis player ignored it. She battled through similar discomfort Friday but by Saturday morning, the once-irritating ache became a serious medical concern.

Every Monday after a meet, Visitation girls’ cross-country coach Jeff Fink gathers the Blazers runners inside the entrance of Mary O’ Foley Athletic Center. Some girls sit, some lie down, tired from their workout that concluded just minutes earlier. All are focused on Fink, standing in front, and what he’s going to say next.

On an away game trip to Providence Academy last season, the Minneapolis South football team’s school bus passed out of town west toward Plymouth, leaving behind Minneapolis Edison, Henry and North. All schools that South’s bus would have stopped at just two years ago for conference games. As the bus exited the city, South coach Lenny Sedlock’s mind wandered to Minneapolis Washburn, a traditional South rival.

Before all the varsity goals, saves, wins and losses, six senior Eastview girls’ soccer players were just a group of young kids playing a game they loved. Since grade school, Molly Beckman, Sally Nelson, Emma Mortenson, Haley Ford, Claudia Pueschner and Corinne Cole have all played on the same soccer team.

For four consecutive years, the Belle Plaine High School volleyball team qualified for the state tournament but failed to win a state championship. But last season in the Class 2A title match, the Tigers defeated Concordia Academy, with the match point coming from their premier hitter, Mariena Hayden, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee on the point prior.

It’s the morning before the Rosemount boys’ cross-country team’s opening competition and energy is high as runners spill onto the track for an 8 a.m. pre-meet practice. Stretching, smiles and small talk fill the laid-back atmosphere. “They love pre-meet,” said Irish coach Chris Harder, who is entering his 20th season, as his runners began what was to be a light practice, saving their legs for the season’s first invitational.

A Woodbury team already lacking depth and with a loss on its record entered its East Metro Blue District game Friday against Cretin-Derham Hall without two of its top players, Nico Bolden and Jake West. It took Cretin-Derham Hall junior receiver Dylan Pohl one play to take advantage of the Royals' thin secondary in the Raiders' 22-12 home victory.

Woodbury started the season with five potential Division I athletes, one already committed to the University of Minnesota. No. 4 in a preseason metro ranking, the talent-stacked Royals came off a 6-3 season in 2015 and were regarded as a consensus favorite to contend for a state championship. Until, coach Andy Hill said, the team got punched in the mouth.

There was a point last season when the Lakeville North girls’ soccer team could have put an 8-by-24-foot brick wall at its net and seen the same results as then-junior goaltender Taylor Lock produced. Lock, who has committed to South Dakota State, delivered 15 consecutive shutouts and allowed only three goals in a season that ended in a third-place finish in the state tournament.

It happened to Ryan Mahoney twice while playing a recent round of footgolf at Afton Alps golf course — once on the seventh hole, the other on the 11th. Mahoney, a 2002 Wayzata High School graduate and one of the nation’s top footgolfers, set himself inside the tee box before lining up his shot. With his wife and playing partner, Carly, and 2-year-old daughter, Brooklyn, watching, he blasted his Adidas Jabulani soccer ball 30 yards through the air.

Diane Schofield, a 1998 graduate of Menomonie, heard the news on the morning of June 28. Pat Summitt, the legendary Tennessee women’s basketball coach, died of Alzheimer’s disease at age 64. Schofield took a private moment to reminisce on her time as a Lady Volunteer. Her four years throwing discus as a member of the track and field team, the relationships she made and being named an All-America thrower raced through her mind.

It is something the Champlin Park seniors have dreamt about since they won the VFW state tournament two years ago – taking the Rebels to the state tournament for the first time since 2003. Tuesday night at CHS field, when senior pitcher Drew Nelson threw the final strike in Champlin Park’s 4-2 win against Totino-Grace, the dreams became a reality and the Rebels were Class 4A, Section 5 champions, with a shot at a state title.