Last year at this time, I unveiled my first annual list of the top Metro stories of the year. It was so much fun I thought I would take another crack at it as we enter the fall and the dawn of a brand new athletic year.

I will say right off the top that the top six stories of the year were very tough, in my opinion, to put in order of importance. Hopefully, it will inspire some good dialogue. I will start off this week counting down from 10 to six. We'll take a week off next week to preview the Metro football season, then come back in two weeks with the top five stories.

So here we go ...

No. 10 -- Cedar Valley Christian debuts in the IHSAA and IGHSAU

It's the answer to a trivia question. The date was Sept. 19, 2011. It was when Cedar Valley Christian's volleyball team recorded the school's first victory in a sanctioned varsity sport. The Huskies beat Meskwaki Settlement School at home three games to one. It was the only win of the year, but a milestone for the Huskies.

All in all, year one was a tough one, and a learning one for CVC in football, volleyball, basketball and baseball. But a sport that had a base already established was boys basketball. Coach Pospisil and the Huskies finished year one with a very respectable mark of 13-10 before dropping a tournament decision to a very good Lone Tree team. With many top players back, the Huskies will be looking to make a deeper tourney run this coming winter.

No. 9 -- Athletics Director Scott Kibby leaves Jefferson

The Metro area said goodbye to one of its top assets this summer when Kibby left Jefferson to become the new AD at Iowa City West, where he replaced Marv Reiland.

Kibby will be missed. He was a terrific organizer and leader and was a friend of the coaches as well as the students and, I say selfishly, the media. He did terrific things for the J-Hawks and the community.

No. 8 -- Marion boys track and field

This was a story that not a lot of people saw coming. The Indians had arguably their finest boys track season in history. They blistered through the regular season and finished fourth at the Class 3A Boys State Track and Field Meet in Des Moines. All told, the Indians broke seven school records this season and won the Wamac Conference meet as well as many others throughout the season for Coach Scott Immerfall, who came back on board as the Indians' coach this season.

No. 7 -- Kennedy baseball finishes in the final four

Success is no stranger to the Kennedy baseball program. For the 14th time, and third consecutive year, the Cougars made the trip to the State Baseball Tournament. The Cougars shared the MVC Mississippi Division title with a very fine Linn-Mar team this summer and made their way to the state tournament by topping Cedar Falls in the substate final, a win which gave Coach Bret Hoyer his 600th coaching victory.

The Cougars defeated the Lions in a quarterfinal in Des Moines by a 13-1 score, before falling to Fort Dodge for the second straight year, in the semifinal. Maybe as remarkable was that not only did this team have a record of 33-7 for the year, but that the Cougars had seven players, all seniors, make the 4A all district first and second teams. A very remarkable feat.

No. 6 -- Washington at Linn-Mar football playoff game, Oct. 31, 2011

Linn-Mar put together an unbeaten 9-0 MVC championship season led by a talented group of seniors. Mark Atwater, Mitch Wantock and Andy Henry to name a few, were the backbone of a team that Coach Bob Forsythe could count on night in and night out. The Lions looked unstoppable, but suffered a blow when Wantock was lost with a broken ankle in the regular-season finale at Xavier.

I really believe that if Wantock was healthy the Lions had a great shot to win a state championship. But that is football.

Washington was similar. A tremendous group of seniors led by David Tann, Will Griffin and Flynn Heald that faced a great deal of adversity and fashioned a fine 6-3 record going into the playoffs. After struggling in the early going, te Warriors finally were healthy and playing with swagger and confidence when the playoffs rolled around.

The perfect storm came together on Halloween night in a second round playoff beauty. If it wasn't for a basketball game played later in the year, this game would be remembered by all sports fans as the tops not only in football, but for the year in sports in the Metro.

After a see-saw first half saw Linn-Mar leading 17-14 at the break, the Lions seemingly took control after an Atwater touchdown run gave the Lions a 26-14 lead with under six minutes remaining.

But that's when the Warriors went to work and scored 14 points in the final two drives of the game, the final score coming with nine seconds remaining on a pass to Heald that capped off an amazing night at new Linn-Mar Stadium. The Warriors saw their season come to an end when they themselves were a comeback victim to Cedar Falls in the quarterfinals. The losses by the Warriors, and also the Lions, did nothing to diminish a tremendous season for both and a Halloween classic everyone will remember.

(Scott Unash is the sports and program director at KGYM-AM 1600 (FM 106.3). He is a six-time winner of the Iowa Broadcast News Association play-by-play Announcer of the Year Award. Scott and Mark Dukes co-host the Gym Class weekdays from 3-4 p.m. on KGYM-AM 1600 and FM-106.3)