It's the final day of 2018. Which means it's time for my annual countdown of the year's top games. When I first started doing this, the number of games corresponded to the year. But, we've gotten to the point where the number in the year is too high, so I'm capping it at 15. Second, I'm not completely binding myself to one game per sport/event like I have in the past. Simply because there were three memorable USA gold-medal winning performances (in three different sports) in PyeongChang that I can't ignore.
As usual, these rankings are extremely subjective. I was even considering not assigning rankings at all and just sorting them by date. But then I realized that's not nearly as much fun. So, here we go, my top 15 games of 2018.
15. Ford EcoBoost 400: November 18, Miami-Once again, NASCAR got a finale that was worthy of deciding a championship. Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex and Kevin Harvick entered the race as the only four eligible drivers for the series title...and they ended up going 1-2-3-4! Logano got the win, both in the race and, more importantly in the points. That's the way to win a championship.
14. Simona Halep vs. Angelique Kerber (Australian Open Women's Semifinal): January 25, Melbourne-Simona Halep had quite the fortnight in Melbourne. In the third round, she was down three match points against American Lauren Davis before winning 15-13 in the third set. Then in the semifinals, she played an absolute classic against 2016 champion Angelique Kerber. Halep served for the match at 5-3 in the third and had two match points on Kerber's serve after getting broken. But she wouldn't get the break until the 16th game of the set, when Halep closed out a 6-3, 4-6, 9-7 victory after two hours and 20 minutes.
13. U.S. Open (Golf) Final Round: June 17, Shinnecock Hills, NY-Four golfers were tied for the lead after the third round, so a playoff seemed almost guaranteed. Except three of the four wouldn't end up being factors. Tommy Fleetwood, who wasn't even on the leaderboard after round three, would. He shot a seven-under 63 to leap into contention. Fleetwood ended up at +2 for the tournament, one stroke behind defending champion Brooks Koepka, who became the first man in nearly 30 years to win consecutive U.S. Opens.
12. Women's Cross Country Team Sprint: Feb. 21, PyeongChang-Entering the PyeongChang Games, the United States had a grand total of one Olympic medal in cross country skiing--a silver in 1976. No U.S. woman had ever won a medal, and no American had ever won gold. All of those stats changed on one glorious night in South Korea. Sweden, Norway and the United States broke away early, so the medal was assured. It was just a matter of color. And with a furious rush down the home straightaway, Jessie Diggins clinched that first-ever gold and let out one of the best victory screams I've ever heard. She and Kikkan Randall had made U.S. Olympic history.
11. Spain 3, Portugal 3 (World Cup, Group B): June 15, Sochi-Once again, the World Cup gave us plenty of candidates for this list. But this one on the second day of the tournament might've been the craziest. Spain and Portugal ending up in the same group was stupid enough. Then they ended up playing each other in the opening game. Pretty Boy had a hat trick. He scored on a penalty kick in the fourth minute, then tied it in the 88th minute with his third goal of the game. And that was just the start of the craziness that was the 2018 World Cup.
10. Women's 4x400 Relay, NCAA Outdoor Championships: June 9, Eugene, OR-USC entered the final event of the NCAA Championships in fourth place, nine points behind indoor champion Georgia and eight behind Stanford. USC was the only one of the three entered in the 4x400 relay and still had a shot at the national title, but the Trojans could only do that if they won the relay and earned the 10 points that went with it. And what happened in that relay was incredible. USC was in fourth place at the start of the anchor leg and third with 100 meters left...about 15 meters behind Purdue. Yet somehow, Kendall Ellis ran everyone down in one of the most incredible finishes I've ever seen to win both the relay and the national title.
9. Preakness Stakes: May 19, Baltimore-This was by far the closest Justify came to losing during that remarkable Triple Crown run. On a disgusting, foggy day in Baltimore, the Kentucky Derby champion raced right to the front on the muddy track, then held off the late-charging Bravazo, Tenfold and Good Magic to win the second leg of an eventual Triple Crown. The top five horses were separated by a total of two lengths.
8. Kansas 85, Duke 81-OT (Elite Eight): March 25, Omaha-Loyola-Chicago gave us some heart-stopping excitement during their surprise run to the Final Four (their first three NCAA Tournament games were decided by a combined four points), but in my opinion, the game of the tournament was Duke and Kansas in the Elite Eight. The only 1 vs. 2 regional final saw two blue-bloods trading punches and counter punches for 45 minutes. Kansas tied it with 26 seconds left, Duke missed a potential game-winner at the buzzer, then Malik Newman scored all 13 of the Jayhawks' points in overtime, as they advanced to their first Final Four in six years.
7. USA 9-Canada 7, 11 ends (Olympic Men's Curling Round Robin): Feb. 19, PyeongChang-The semifinal win over Canada was thrilling, and five-point end against Sweden in the final essentially locked up the gold medal before it was official. But the American men's curling team doesn't win that historic first Olympic title without their round-robin victory over the Canadians. In fact, the USA was only 2-4 and in danger of missing out on the medal round entirely had they lost this one. Canada scored two in the 10th end to tie the score at 7-7, and American skip John Shuster had to make a perfect shot on his final stone of the 11th to win. That's exactly what he did, getting the gold-medal run started.
6. Notre Dame 61, Mississippi State 58 (NCAA Women's National Championship Game): April 1, Columbus, OH-Just in case her three-pointer with one second left in overtime to win the National Semifinal against UConn wasn't enough, Arike Ogunbowale decided to one-up herself in the National Championship Game. Mississippi State actually led 58-53 with less than two minutes remaining when the Irish started their comeback. A steal gave Notre Dame the ball with three seconds to go in a 58-58 game. After both teams took timeout, Ogunbowale drained a three while falling out of bounds in front of the Notre Dame bench with 0.1 seconds left, clinching the national title.
5. Dodgers 3-Red Sox 2, 18 innings (World Series Game 3): Oct. 26-27, Los Angeles-Everyone could tell as the innings went on and the hours passed that Game 3 of the World Series was something that won't soon be forgotten. Checking in at seven hours and 20 minutes, it wasn't just the longest game in World Series history, it was longer than the ENTIRE 1939 series. It was 1-1 until the Red Sox scored in the 13th, only to have the Dodgers tie in the bottom of the 13th. And so it continued. Nathan Eovaldi threw up zero after zero until Max Muncy led off the bottom of the 18th with a walk-off homer, finally sending everybody home. It was actually the only game in the entire series that Boston lost.
4. Alabama 26, Georgia 23-OT (CFP National Championship Game): Jan. 8, Atlanta-College football's version of Warriors-Cavs was a semifinal game, and the other semifinal was an absolutely incredible Rose Bowl where Georgia beat Oklahoma in double overtime. Yet the Championship Game managed to top it. Georgia had a 13-0 lead at halftime and led 20-7 midway through the third quarter. Then Nick Saban switched quarterbacks and Alabama scored 13 unanswered points. Georgia got the ball first in overtime and kicked a field goal. So Alabama naturally got a 41-yard touchdown pass on the second play of its OT possession to win another national title, their fifth in nine years.
3. Novak Djokovic vs. Rafael Nadal (Wimbledon Men's Semifinal): July 13-14, London-July 13 was one of the most epic days in Wimbledon history. Eleven hours of men's semifinals, starting with the Kevin Anderson-John Isner marathon that pushed the start of Djokovic-Nadal back to 8:00 London time. And that match proved to be just as epic. In fact, it would be the second-longest semifinal in Wimbledon history (only the previous match was longer). Djokovic won the third set tiebreak to take a 2-1 lead when they had to suspend due to curfew on Friday night. Nadal then won the fourth set on Saturday. Djokovic had a little bit more in the fifth, though, taking it 6-4, 3-6, 7-6, 3-6, 10-8.
2. United States 3, Canada 2-SO (Olympic Women's Hockey Gold Medal Game): Feb. 22, PyeongChang-Oops, I did it again. That's the name of Jocelyn Lamoureux's move that put the U.S. ahead in the shootout. Maddie Rooney then stopped Meghan Agosta's attempt, and the Americans were Olympic women's hockey gold medalists for the first time in 20 years. Of course, it only got to that point because Monique Lamoureux scored with less than six minutes left after Canada had taken a 2-1 lead. The victory was made even sweeter because the U.S. had lost to Canada in the gold medal game at three of the previous four Olympics.
1. Eagles 41, Patriots 33 (Super Bowl LII): Feb. 4, Minneapolis-For the second straight year, I'm putting the Super Bowl in the top spot. And for the second straight year, I don't even think it's particularly close. The Patriots were the heavy favorites to defend their title and win their sixth Super Bowl of the Bradicheck Era. Someone forgot to tell the Eagles and backup quarterback Nick Foles. He was on the receiving end of "Philly Special," a touchdown pass that put the Eagles up 22-12 at the half. New England rallied to take a 33-32 lead, only for Foles to respond with a seven-minute, 14-play drive that gave Philadelphia a 38-33 advantage with 2:21 left. Instead of Brady doing what he normally does, though, he fumbled and the Eagles recovered in field goal range. After the field goal put them up eight, the Philly defense held, and they were Super Bowl champions.
Was the Super Bowl better than that Monday night shootout between the Rams and Chiefs in November? I'm going to say "Yes" only because of the significance of the game. Although, that one very well might've been a Super Bowl preview. And if it was, I can easily see Super Bowl LIII topping the list in 2019.
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