KENS 5 Best of 2015: Sports moments – KENS 5 TV
As much as any sports fan will tell you to expect the unexpected during any big event, we’re still always surprised. Somehow, certain games, matches, fights, and contests seem so one-sided that we’re celebrating the favorite long before they’ve won. Or, through the course of play, it seems impossible that anything but victory awaits a team on the precipice of glory.
But it’s those moments that we live for as sports fans, the ones that catch us completely off guard and throw us into a frenzy. It’s all about the ones that make jaded adults, who think they’ve seen everything, start shouting and celebrating like little kids.
These were our favorite sports moments of 2015.
10. “Seth Rollins with the heist of the century!”
We have quite a few wrestling fans in the KENS 5 newsroom. And with Monday Night Raw in San Antonio next week, we had to include this one.
After Wrestlemania XXX’s incredible finish, with Daniel Bryan becoming the first ever WWE superstar to win multiple matches in a single Wrestlemania event, there was no way the company could come close to that moment the following year. But they found a way. Seth Rollins become the first ever Money in the Bank contract winner to cash in at the “Showcase of the Immortals.” He turned a solid match into one of the best of the year and completely changed the narrative of what the top of the card looked like in 2015. Many great matches and moments followed, but it all started with this one.
With Wrestlemania coming to Dallas in 2016, what will the WWE come up with next?
9. The Seminole shocker.
How many college football shocking finishes do there have to be before we just throw out all assumptions about how a game, or even a play, will turn out? It seems like we’ll never get there, and I hope we don’t.
Back in October, the unranked and unremarkable Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets hosted the No. 9 Florida State Seminoles. Tech had done an incredible job defensively all game, holding off FSU. But at the game’s conclusion, it looked like the Seminoles would pull out a close win; one they’d, perhaps, look back on as the game that nearly kept them out of the college football playoff. They set up for a 56-yard field goal to win.
Worst-case scenario is they miss and it goes to overtime, where they could carry their late-game momentum to victory. Even if it’s blocked there’s no way…
Oh…
8. When LeBron made us believe.
Looking back, it’s almost a little silly that we thought that a team starting Matthew Dellavedova and Iman Shumpert could possibly take down the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals. But, for a few days, LeBron James made us believe it could happen.
No NBA player in history has done what he tried to do in the Finals: single-handedly carry a team to a championship. Michael Jordan had Hall of Fame teammates. LeBron’s fellow all-stars were injured. Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving were out for this series. James put the Cavs on his back and led them to a 2-1 series lead. They lost the next three games, but the valiant effort put forth only further solidified his greatness and had us believing that anything is possible.
7. The bat flip.
Nothing more needs to be said about that baddest home run of 2015.
6. Serena slammed.
If there’s a bigger upset in sports history, I’ll have to see it to believe it.
Serena Williams was supposed to skate by Roberta Vinci, an unranked, 32-year-old Italian who basically lucked her way into the US Open semifinal. Don’t believe me? She didn’t beat a single ranked player up to that point. She won in the 4th round because her opponent suffered a concussion slipping in the locker room before the match. There was only one other unranked player in the quarterfinals and Vinci got to play her.
Calling her a 300:1 underdog was generous.
But somehow, Vinci’s unorthodox style of play was enough to topple the greatest tennis player of all-time and prevent her from completing Super Slam: winning all four grand slams in a calendar year.
Of course, Vinci slow-rolled the audience. She lost the first set 6-2. People who weren’t tuned in to the match figured that the final was set. They’d dedicate their time to Serena in the final when she was truly on the brink of history. But she never got there.
Vinci actually had words for those disappointed after the match in one of the greatest post-match interviews of all time: “Today is my day. Sorry guys!”
5. Sparty’s miracle.
Of all the ways that a college football game can end, this has to be the craziest way. We’ve seen special teams plays like returned kick-offs and punts. Those plays are designed to work that way. Not so strange. When a blocked kick or short field goal is returned, it’s a little less likely, but when you think about all the huge linemen on the field for the kicking team versus the athletes that the return team has on the field, maybe not so strange. But all Michigan had to do was get the punt off and the game was over.
They literally could’ve snapped the ball to the quarterback in a shotgun formation, punted the ball, and the game was over.
But that’s not how it went.
The breaks kept coming, leading them all the way to the college football playoff.
4. Jordan Spieth’s run at immortality.
Some accomplishments in sports are near-impossible. Winning a Grand Slam in one calendar year is considered one of them. At his peak, Tiger Woods came close, but didn’t do it. To step up and close out just one major in a career is considered life-changing and worthy of a golfer’s place in history.
Heck, only five modern-era golfers have even been able to complete a career grand slam. Some of the greatest golfers in history couldn’t do it in careers that spanned decades.
Jordan Spieth didn’t just win the first two majors of 2015, they were his first two career major victories. And in the back nine of the British Open, he had a chance to get into a playoff to win his 3rd.
He fell short, of course. The golf gods decided that it was not his year to ascend to Olympus. And it took a historic effort from Jason Day in the PGA Championship to prevent Spieth from winning his 3rd major of the year.
Will it be Spieth’s only run at immortality? Some think he’s too young for that not to be the case. Either way, we’ll have fun watching him try.
3. The Patriots steal the Super Bowl.
If there’s anything that you should take from this list is that it’s never over until it’s over.
I was rooting for the New England Patriots in this game and I can tell you this: After Jermaine Kearse made that crazy catch and Marshawn Lynch ran them down to the one yard line on the next play, I thought it was over. Everyone did.
“Just let them run it in so you at least get the ball back and a chance for a Hail Mary, maybe even a game-tying field goal,” is what everyone was thinking. Nobody, not even the most ardent, die-hard, life-long Patriots fan with all the championships and all the wins in the 21st century is thinking, “we got this.” But somehow, they pulled it off.
One play later, Pete Carroll called a passing play and Malcolm Butler got the interception that won the Super Bowl. Not seconds after the play was over, he was crying uncontrollably being congratulated by his teammates.
What makes this play even better is the amazing conspiracy that followed. Did the Seahawks call a pass to make Russell Wilson the MVP and shift the spotlight away from Lynch? There’s no other explanation.
And, of course, news came out following the game that the Patriots knew exactly what was coming. Butler had practiced that exact play in the week leading up to the game. He was a late substitution because defensive coaches recognized the formation. It all came together perfectly.
The rest of the world was shocked.
2. Carly Lloyd becomes a soccer god.
There was a lot of tension going into the championship final of this year’s Women’s World Cup. The United States was seeking its first title since 1999. In 2011, they thought they had it. Against Japan, this generation’s run was finally going to hit its apex after so many clutch plays and rallying the country behind them.
But they came up short. In 2015, against Japan once again, the pressure was stronger. Careers and legacies were on the line. It was their last shot.
Thanks to Carli Lloyd, instead of 90 minutes of tension, it was a 90-minute party.
In less than 17 minutes, Lloyd notched an improbable hat trick to put the United States up 3-0. It was nothing short of watching magic happen on the pitch.
In that game, in that moment, no matter the field surface, man or woman, Carli Lloyd was the best in the world.
1. Holly Holm shocks the world.
Rhonda Rousey was more than an MMA fighter. She was the toughest, most unbeatable woman in the world. She became a feminist icon and an inspiration to people everywhere.
She was charismatic, charming, beautiful, tough, loquacious, and everything we could want in a modern athlete.
“I wonder how Floyd [Mayweather] feels being beat by a woman for once.”
In our hearts, she was invincible.
Then she met Holly Holm.
The New Mexico native had made a name for herself in the boxing world, but with little fanfare. Becoming the undisputed, unanimous pick for greatest female boxer of all time doesn’t come with a lot of financial benefits, so she turned to mixed martial arts where she climbed the ladder high enough to become Rousey’s sacrificial lamb in Australia and get a pretty good payday out of it.
Then she won, and the world exploded. Her journey and her story are now cemented as legend. And now she’s in the spotlight, with a chance coming to prove that she was no fluke. It’s Holm that’ll be at the top of the card for the biggest fight of the year in 2016. And it will be Holm as the reigning, defending champ going in.
For a long time, women’s MMA was just Rhonda Rousey. Thanks to Holly Holm, nevermore.