Top 10 MaxPreps High School Sports Stories of 2013-14

The high school sports landscape is filled — even saturated — with stories. With more than 20,000 high schools and 7.7 million athletes participating annually, the frequency of newsworthy events and performances has increased drastically.

Today we look at the Top 10 stories told by MaxPreps during the 2013-14 season, from a national landscape.

Drum roll please.

10. He's No. 1 It had been 23 years since a high school left-hand pitcher earned the No. 1 spot in the Major League Baseball Draft, but Cathedral Catholic (San Diego) senior Brady Aiken accomplished that last month. The 6-foot-4, 205-pounder was picked by the Houston Astros after going 7-0 with 111 strikeouts in 59.2 innings. He throws 97 MPH.{PAGEBREAK}9. Game of Dethrones De La Salle (Concord, Calif.) hadn't just won four straight state Open Division football titles. In the last three the Northern California champions dominated Southern California foes by a combined 129-36 score. But in the last game of the 2013 high school season, in a contest pitting two of the top five teams in the country, St. John Bosco (Bellflower, Calif.) answered the call and challenge.

{PAGEBREAK}8. A Day to Remember Just hours after Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy (Cincinnati) right-hander Cameron Varga was taken in the second round of the 2014 MLB Draft, he threw a no-hitter. Now that is one memorable day.{PAGEBREAK}7. The Greatest Twice Removed We've covered many sons of many famous athletes before, but a Bishop Gorman (Las Vegas) freshman football player has bloodlines with "The Greatest." The story of Biaggio Ali Walsh, the 15-year-old grandson of Muhammad Ali, reveals a very fast and gifted running back who appears to have all the ingredients to excel despite the enormous shadow cast by his larger-than-life granddad.



{PAGEBREAK}6. Clean Sweep The Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.) boys basketball team hit for the cycle, garnering a national championship, the national basketball Player of the Year, Stanley Johnson, and the national basketball Coach of the Year, Gary McKnight, who was also voted the overall Boys Coach of the Year.

{PAGEBREAK}5. Fighting through Kenny Randall has continued on. He's had no choice really. Four of his best friends and Mainland Regional (Linwood, N.J.) football teammates were killed in a car accident the morning of Aug. 20, 2011 after a morning practice. Randall opened up to MaxPreps correspondent Joseph Santiliquitto a month before he was headed to play college football at Temple.{PAGEBREAK}4. How many is too many? A national debate and borderline firestorm started when Rochester (Wash.) pitcher Dylan Fosnacht pitched 14 innings and threw 194 pitches in a 1-0, 17-inning game against LaCenter last May. Afterward, other coaches weighed in on coach Jerry Striegel's decision to leave Fosnacht in.{PAGEBREAK}3. Steamy Miami Heat Only five times since national football rankings have been kept has there been a showdown between the No. 1 and No. 2 teams. On Sept. 6 in South Florida, cross-town Miami rivals Central and Booker T. Washington battled for the country's top spot at steamy Traz Powell Stadium. Washington prevailed 28-17 en route to a national title.

{PAGEBREAK}2. Unraveled The Curie (Chicago) boys basketball team had it all going on. The Condors had won 24 games, defeated national No. 16 and rival Whitney Young in a nationally televised game and had also beaten No. 17 and perennial national power Bishop Gorman (Las Vegas). The team's 6-foot-9 center Cliff Alexander, a Kansas recruit, was a national Player of the Year contender. But then it all came crashing down. Curie had to forfeit 24 wins for using seven ineligible players.

{PAGEBREAK}1. The perseverance of Pickett Zach Pickett was one of his region's top water polo and swim prospects after his freshman and sophomore years at Ponderosa (Shingle Springs, Calif.). He looked destined to follow in his brother's footsteps as a college swimmer when tragedy hit. A diving accident in a local lake the summer before his junior year crushed his seventh vertebra and compressed it into his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.

Pickett's perseverance brought him back to the water, not only to swim but also to lay claim as the nation's only paraplegic water polo player. His story reached many, and because of it he was honored last week in Boston at the annual NFHS convention. He received the nation's top Spirit of Sport award for courage.

Pickett's story also made the "miraculous" rounds when he walked with the use of a cane at his high school graduation.