This year, my last as an Albion Briton, hasn’t been the brightest for the Albion College sports teams.

There have been no MIAA titles. No shocking victories.

Granted, the women’s tennis team and men’s track team are in good shape to win league titles, and the men’s tennis and baseball teams can’t be counted out.

But for much of my time on campus this semester—after spending last fall as far away as possible in Sydney, Australia—there has been a general lack of excitement surrounding Albion sports.

Or maybe this is simply my perception. After all, the last three years provided more than enough championships and amazing games.

With that said, the following are my top five moments from my four years spent following Albion College sports.

The Albion women’s tennis team hadn’t won an MIAA title outright since 1954. It had only shared one, in 1993 with Kalamazoo.

Then Scott Frew came along.

Frew, who became the men’s and women’s coach in 2001, brought the women’s program up quickly. The Britons won the league title in 2003, and then, after finishing second in 2004, won back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006.

This weekend, they’re on a mission to make it four out of five.

"I think we’re a good program, a respected program, so we should keep going forward," Frew said last season.

How can you doubt him?

The Albion men’s track team had been owned by Calvin for nine years. After sharing the 1994 MIAA title with Calvin, the Britons played second fiddle to the Knights until the spring of 2004.

Following the prediction of their standout athlete, Nick Morgan, 2004 graduate, the Britons knocked off Calvin 101-91 in a double dual meet to win the regular season title.

Calvin came back to win the MIAA field day and forge a tie for the league title, but the statement had been made: Albion would no longer back down from its rival.

This year, the Britons are showing their guns again. Last week, they tied Calvin 96-96 in their dual meet, and Calvin’s loss to Hope a day later put Albion in the driver’s seat to win the league title outright.

Prior to the 2003-04 season, the Albion women’s basketball team had no history to speak of. Sure, some good players had come through, but the Britons hadn’t won a MIAA title in the 25 years the league had featured women’s basketball, and they hadn’t played a single NCAA tournament game.

Then came the quick turnaround.

Behind third-year coach Doreen Carden and star player Sarah Caskey, 2005 graduate, the Britons broke through to win their first MIAA tournament and advance to their first NCAA tournament in 2004.

There, they lost a hard-fought contest to Wilmington College (Ohio), which went on to win the NCAA title.

After winning the MIAA tournament, Carden said, "I think our girls really stepped it up in the postseason when we needed to. I think our effort in the tournament was so much better than most of the time in the regular season."

Albion went on to win its first regular season title the following year, in addition to its first NCAA tournament game, putting together a school-record 25 wins overall.

And no longer could anyone discount the Britons as a force in the MIAA.

The Albion football team was sick of losing. For the first time since 1986-88, it had gone three years without claiming at least a share of the MIAA title.

So despite starting the 2005 season a dismal 1-3, the Britons didn’t quit. In fact, once they picked up some steam, they were unstoppable. They rolled to six consecutive victories—all by 17 points or more—to claim their first league title since 2001.

In back-to-back weeks, they shut out Hope 34-0 and clobbered Alma 66-27. It was pure domination. And no team had an answer.

"Right now I don’t even know if you can describe [the feeling]," said Steve Wasil, 2006 graduate and Albion quarterback, after beating Olivet for the MIAA title.

And what a feeling it must have been. Especially for Wasil and his fellow seniors. They had avoided becoming the first senior class since 1984 to graduate without a league title.

Wasil was named the MIAA’s most valuable offensive player and broke several school passing records, including yards in a season (3,113), yards in a career (6,008), touchdowns in a season (33), touchdowns in a career (57) and yards in a game (412).

Within a week in 2005, despite it being spring break, the Albion men’s basketball team made Kresge Gymnasium the place to escape the cold.

The two Albion seniors, Michael Thomas and Travis DePree, who had carried the team all season—leading the Britons to the MIAA title—provided heroics in the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament.

In the first round, against the College of Wooster, DePree made a free throw with just tenths of a second remaining for a 59-58 victory. The Albion students in attendance stormed the court.

Little did they know, there would be a much bigger celebration a week later.

After seemingly blowing their second-round game against John Carroll University, DePree and Thomas combined for perhaps the most memorable single play in the history of Albion men’s basketball.

Trailing by two points with just over two seconds remaining, DePree rebounded a missed free throw by John Carroll and threw the ball to Thomas at mid-court. Thomas immediately took a few dribbles up court before launching himself into the air, hanging, and then releasing a shot from in between two defenders.

The ball hit the backboard, careened softly off the front of the rim, and then seemed to hang in the air for a moment before falling through.

Chaos erupted throughout Kresge. Chills went down my spine. It was the ultimate moment of my four years spent following Albion sports.

Albion’s season ended in the next round against Calvin, but by no means did the loss take away from what had happened in a span of seven days.

As Thomas said, "Everyone’s going to be talking about those games for a long time."