Most of South Orange and Maplewood's great sports moments of 2011 came early and often, but the Columbia High School boys basketball team delivered a late-year present on 12/19 with their defeat of Seton Hall Prep.

Read on!

1. 2/26 - Olivia Baker wins 400 Meet of Champions: The freshman phenom burst onto the scence in the winter and continued to dominate her event in the spring. She won easily, nearly two seconds faster than the competition. Look for Baker to be a regular on this list for the next three years.

2. 3/3/11 - Columbia fencing goes back-to-back: The Cougar boys have not lost a match in over two years and kept the streak alive in the state finals last winter, edging Montclair by one point to win the title. It was the second straight championship for the locals who were powered by the likes of Brian Kaneshige and Andrew Kelly.

3. 6/4 - Girls track wins Group 4: It was a dominant performance by the Cougars at Group 4 who had a little unfinished business after losing out on the indoor Group 4 championship because of a disqualification. Baker won the 400 and 800, Kiana Winston was second in the 100 hurdles and the Cougar girls won the 4x400 behind Baker, Imani Coleman, Maya Hinton and Winston.

4. 2/27 - Andrew Adams wins his 100th wrestling match: Adams finished his career tied for the all-time school record for career wins, with 101. Adams placed fourth at the Region 4 tournament to end the season.

5. 5/20 - Queens of the county once more: Well the rest of the county can feel a little better about things, after all, the Cougar girls track team only won by 33 points this spring, so it's kind of a moral victory. They won by more than 100 points in each of the last two years. In any case, Columbia dominated the field, winning seven events and placing in a bunch more to claim their fifth consecutive county championship.

6. 2/15 - Girls fencing reaches state semifinals: There aren't multiple sections in fencing state championships like there are in nearly every other sport. So when a team makes the postseason in fencing, it's a big deal. The girls not only made it to the playoffs but beat Ridge in the quarterfinals. Their playoff run ended in the semis, but they ended up as the third best team in the state.

7.  5/5 - Van Natta and Major go yard in a comeback upset over West Orange: The West Orange Mountaineers came to Meadowlands Park as a 13-3 juggernaut and left stunned when the Cougars stood toe-to-toe with them and won. Mariah Major's homerun tied the game at four, while Kyrsten Van Natta's shot gave the girls an early 3-0 lead.

8. 12/19 - Columbia boys basketball stuns Seton Hall Prep: The win shocked all of Essex County and gave immediate cred to new head coach, Eddie Turner. The Cougars began the season with a 13-2 record before cooling off a bit down the stretch. They lost to East Orange in the second round of states and to Irvington in the county semis.

9. 4/21 - A miracle comeback for Cougar baseball: It was an otherwise subpar season for the boys on the diamond, and entering their first game against Livingston, they were 3-5, while the Lancers were 5-3 Livingston took a commanding 6-1 lead in the top half of the second inning. Columbia exploded for eight runs in the next two innings, tacked on another score in the sixth and held on for a comeback 10-9 thrilling win.

10. 2/10 - Sam Webb's buzzer beater: Sam Webb began asserting herself as a force to be reckoned with under the glass. In a mid-season match up against Bloomfield Tech, Webb pulled down an offensive rebound and put it back off of the glass at the game-ending buzzer, sending Columbia to a 52-50 victory, improving their record to 11-7, at the time.