Guess what? I'm actually not on the road or in the office! Sitting at home on the couch for the first time in what seems like forever, and it's a pretty darn good feeling.

It's been a hell of a finish to the high school sports year for Kern County, what with five state track and field championships and a second-place finish for Stockdale's Pete Fernandez at the boys golf state tournament in Santa Maria on Tuesday.

In case you missed it, the track champions were Dayshan Ragans of Foothill, who was a double champ in the shot put and discus; Anna Jelmini of Shafter, also a throwing double champ; and Ridgeview's Johnny Carter, one of the meet's true surprises when he won the triple jump as a freshman. Foothill's Chris Schwartz was second in the boys 3,200 (behind only the cyborg known as German Fernandez) and Ridgeview's Chris Kelly (triple jump) and Burroughs' Kayla Kovar (discus) each finished third.

As for Fernandez, he battled through a windy day on a course with narrow fairways, deep rough and difficult pin positions to shoot even par. Only one of the best high school players in the state was able to shoot better than that. So congratulations to Pete.

The highlight of this Kern high school sports season, at least for me, came in the last two weeks of it. Five state champions, two runners-up and a slew of other great performances.

Others might remember November (I wasn't here), when four of the five Central Section football champions came from Kern, including a thriller in the Div. I final for Bakersfield High. Or the winter, when Travis Rasmussen of BHS wrestled for a state title and Garces made a run to the state quarterfinals before colliding with Jrue Holiday's North Hollywood-Campbell Hall team. Still yet, you might pick back-to-back days in May when Stockdale baseball and Centennial softball won championships.

While I work on putting together spring All-Area teams, tell me what your favorite memory of the past year was.