This is largely the midseason clips show retrospective episode of Bull Run's 2014-15 season, but with a few more days to football, and a few more hours before Swimming and Diving and Volleyball get going, I've decided to get into the holiday spirit
5. Caleb Porter - Akron Men's Soccer (Head Coach)
Caleb Porter never competed for the MAC, but before he moved on to his current role as the Head Coach of MLS's Portland Timbers, he built a monster in the Akron Men's Soccer program. The Zips won the MAC regular season all seven years he was in charge, winning all but two games: a tie in 2006 and a tie in 2007, and won the tournament championship five of those seven years.
In 2010, after a number of weeks atop the rankings, Porter and the Zips claimed a national championship for the MAC. A half dozen or more of that team now plays professional soccer.
On that alone, Porter isn't that significant. Many teams have been dominant in the MAC while Buffalo waits by. But in 2007, Porter's journey to the second round of the NCAA tournament ran through one of UB's better chances at a team MAC Championship of the last ten years.
UB's 2007 run to the MAC Championship game was the finishing touch on a 10-7-2 season that looks even better when you see that the Bulls dropped the final three games of the regular season while still securing a bye and needing only a win over Hartwick to get to the Final.
In the final UB played one of their strongest games of the season, but fell when the winning goal was headed into the net by Akron freshman Anthony Ampaipitakwong in the 101st minute for the Zips' fifth MAC Tournament title. Porter didn't score the winning goal, but he built the monster that dominated the MAC for six years and is only now, two years after his departure, showing signs of cracking.
4. Ben Roethlisberger - Miami Football
I'd like just as much as anyone to forget about all UB Football happenings prior to 2005 or so. But during the early 2000s - the recent high-water mark for the MAC - one game stands out for the hapless Bulls. One game against a very good Ben Roethlisberger and a very good Miami team.
Make no mistake: Big Ben is pretty scary anyway. And in two previous games against the Bulls he had done pretty well: 23 for 30 with two touchdowns and a pick in 2001, and 16 for 24 with three touchdowns in 2002.
2003, though, featured one of the biggest losses in MAC football history: The Redhawks stomped UB 59-3 in a game that saw Ben hit complete 75% of his passes for four touchdowns. It's a game that still lives on in the minds of the Miami fanbase over at Miami Hawk Talk:
"We will shoot for perfection... but nobody's perfect. But we'll shoot for perfection and we'll settle for excellence."
--Terry Hoeppner, following Miami's 59-3 victory over Buffalo, 10/11/03
3. Savannah Jo Dorsey - Ohio Women's Softball
You could have spent your spring writing hit pieces about the coaching change in basketball and the total referendum that men's basketball's loss to Eastern Michigan was on the move by Danny White. Or you could have been following the most successful UB team of the 2013-14 athletic year; softball, who had a star pitcher in Tori Speckman, but had championship dreams dashed by two shutouts in three games from Ohio nemesis Savannah Jo Dorsey.
A day after throwing a perfect game in a 3-0 victory over MAC regular season champion Ball State, Dorsey limited the Bulls to only five hits and two walks while fanning 13 over 13 frames of work to match her career high for the fourth time this season and second time in as many games.
When UB fought through the loser's bracket to get back to Ohio in the MAC Championship, Dorsey shut them down again, over seven innings.
She's only a junior. She is terrifying.
2. Martin Samarco - Bowling Green Men's Basketball
I hate talking about Martin Samarco, so you're getting a very long quote from volume five of this summer's Bull Run Glossary series:
MARTIN SAMARCO
God, another Bowling Green basketball one. Martin Samarco makes this list as a sharpshooting guard for a couple years' worth of Falcons teams, but especially because he straight up murderated UB whenever they faced off. Samarco shot 39% from beyond the arc during his time at Bowling Green on his way to 19 ppg, but always amped it up for a game against the Bulls. Furthermore, the guy was the first in a long line of MAC agitators that includes Alex 'expelled for running a drug operation' Abreu (Akron), and Andre 'Brazilian 'fro' Coimbra (CMU), and was just a pain in the ass.
In four games spanning two seasons against Buffalo, the guard scored 17, 23, 30, and 43 points against the Bulls, knocking down seven three-pointers in two of those games, six in another, and attempting an incredible 16th in the fourth, in which despite going 2-16 from distance he managed 17 points in a 90-98 Bowling Green loss.
Most of all, though, we remember Martin Samarco for his role in the greatest mano-a-mano battle UB basketball has seen in the last 15 years. See below.
MARTIN SAMMARCO VS ERIC MOORE
This game, man.
I'll just leave this here to start:
Buffalo vs Bowling Green (01/07/07 at Bowling Green, Ohio (Anderson Arena)) - Buffalo
We've already talked about Samarco, but you should know about Eric Moore. Eric Moore is the best three-point shooter Buffalo has had in the last fifteen years. Better than Cage, Filzen, or anyone else. The dude would just turn it on and pour it in. We don't remember him very well, because he didn't get a ton of time his freshman year, and transferred to Farleigh Dickinson after his sophomore year after a rumoured disagreement with Reggie. In that one year, though, Moore proved to be one of the top shooters in the conference, and never shone more brightly than January 7th against Bowling Green in Anderson Arena.
As you can see from the box score, Moore was red-hot, shooting 11 for 16 from beyond the arc to match Samarco's 7 threes and 43 points. It truly was a great game featuring two heavyweights, and Buffalo held the lead with seconds to go and Samarco trapped in the corner. Then this happened:
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/inuxnQ0uDM4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Because it's Buffalo.
If you like sadness, you can find the entire Eric Moore - Martin Samarco game beginning with this video, apparently uploaded by Moore:
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/HCDlmPspBTg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
1. Leon Williams - Ohio Men's Basketball
More quoting, less pain for me:
LEON WILLIAMS
I imagine that most of the Red Sox fans among our readership jumped aboard in the early 2000s when they got their act together as a franchise and decided not to waste the end of Pedro's prime. But if any are older, or at least New England natives, they know Bucky F@#^ing Dent.
Leon Williams is UB's Bucky Dent. We can call him Leon Flecking Williams if we want.
Bull Run didn't exist at the time, but in 2004 UB Basketball made it to the MAC Championship Game and ultimately had the lead with seconds to go in overtime before Leon Williams happened.
LEON WILLIAMS
I imagine that most of the Red Sox fans among our readership jumped aboard in the early 2000s when they got their act together as a franchise and decided not to waste the end of Pedro's prime. But if any are older, or at least New England natives, they know Bucky F@#^ing Dent.
Leon Williams is UB's Bucky Dent. We can call him Leon Flecking Williams if we want.
Bull Run didn't exist at the time, but in 2004 UB Basketball made it to the MAC Championship Game and ultimately had the lead with seconds to go in overtime before Leon Williams happened.
Conrad has also provided his student's perspective of Leon Williams crushing everything we love, in this piece from our Worst Buffalo Sports Moments series:
Ohio got a good look but UB did a good job cycling over to defend Jeremy Fears, who missed his game winning layup with one missed a lay in with 1 second left, UB had the game.
It all happened so quickly, but that last second took an eternity.
As the defense cycled to Fears, no one boxed out Leon Williams, who was open to tip the miss back into the bucket, just before the buzzer sounded. In a nanosecond, UB went from MAC Champions to losers, Ohio storming the court in victory.
I was out of the Gund in what seemed like seconds, in shock. Ohio fans taunted, fans of other MAC teams taunted, no one wanted to see Buffalo win, the conference was happy. The drive back to Buffalo took one-hundred eighty silent minutes, that went by pretty quickly.
I'm sure I missed some. This is indeed Buffalo. I would put in a poll, but I don't think it would be that close. If you have other ideas, do share in the comments.