Top 10 moments of the 2011 Gold Sox

One more weekend remains.

What started on a dreary evening in May will come to a bittersweet end on Sunday at Appeal-Democrat Park; the Marysville Gold Sox are packing it up for the summer.

The Horizon Air Summer Series McCullough Division title is all theirs and now the Gold Sox head into the final series of the summer intending to savor what's left of the season.

Of course, there's still something to play for with a current 16-game winning streak, but this may also be the last chance these players will ever see each other again.

The lights at 14th and B are just about out, though before the sound of cracks from wooden bats leaves the Mid-Valley until next year, let's take a look back at some of the top moments in the 2011 Marysville Gold Sox season.

Here's the top 10 moments of the summer:

10 — Rain, rain, go away

Watching baseball at the yard is supposed to be about busting out the shorts, T-shirt, glove and a bag of sunflower seeds — not an umbrella.

In the Gold Sox's first two weeks of the season, rain put a damper on the festivities, shortening one game and, for the first time in team history, a game had to be rescheduled.

Players from other parts of the country had heard all about the beautiful California weather. Bet they didn't anticipate they would need galoshes for batting practice in the first week.

9 — Home, not-so-sweet, home

Not only did the precipitation make opening weekend gloomy, the Sox lost their home opener for the first time in team history.

The Redding Colt .45s smacked around the Gold Sox 12-5 and amassed 15 hits.

That loss wasn't very indicative of how the rest of the summer went for Marysville, moreover, most of the Gold Sox roster was filled with replacement players in that first weekend.

8 — There's no tying in baseball

Marysville's first road trip of the season was supposed to be the litmus test of where things stood at the half-way point of the season.

Right in the middle of a stretch of 10 games in 11 days, the Gold Sox traveled to Klamath Falls, Ore., to square off with the Klamath Falls Gems in a HASS contest.

Apparently, the Gems didn't consider that ballgame a "league" game and wanted the contest to end in a tie after nine innings.

Marysville held a 1-0 lead going into the bottom of the ninth when the Gems pushed across the tying run. Klamath Falls coaches thought that was good enough and the game ended.

The most frustrating part of that loss, it prevents the Gold Sox from possibly reaching the 40-win plateau. If the Sox sweep this weekend's series they will finish the summer with 39 wins overall.

7 — I wanna be a Cowboy, baby

Kenton Bevacqua had no idea what he was going to do this fall.

The Yuba City native finished his second year at Solano College this past May and just wanted his baseball career to continue somewhere.

His wish came true and now he's heading to Big 12 country.

Bevacqua received a partial scholarship to pitch for the Oklahoma State Cowboys next season where he'll take on the role of the situational left-hander.

"It's always been my goal to play Division-I baseball, it just happens to be a Big 12 school," Bevacqua told the A-D last month. "I've never been (to Oklahoma) before, so it's going to be different."

6 — Decisions, decisions

Gold Sox pitcher Cody Anderson had a nice dilemma to contemplate this summer — go pro or D-I?

Anderson was drafted in the 14th round of this year's MLB Draft by the Cleveland Indians, but also had a scholarship offer to play college ball at TCU, a program just one year removed from the College World Series.

Anderson held a 1.01 ERA for the Gold Sox this summer and struck out 53 batters in 442⁄3 innings pitched. His fastball consistently hovers around the low-90s.

The right-hander decided to choose education and left Marysville in the middle of July after his coaches at TCU asked that he shut down his arm for the rest of the summer.

5 — Power numbers

As a team, the Gold Sox have tallied 15 home runs this season, the second-highest total in franchise history behind the 2006 team that totaled 18 big flies.

Marysville has four games this weekend to surpass that mark, but no team accomplished what the 2011 Sox did.

Tyler Kuresa, Brent Hottman and Will Soto all had multi-home run games this season. No Gold Sox player in team history ever had a single multi-homer game before this year.

4 — Sox in 'The Show'

Anthony Bass spent the summer of 2007 with the Gold Sox and in June made his big-league debut with the San Diego Padres.

The right-hander went five innings, surrendering one earned run in a 3-1 victory over the Colorado Rockies.

Bass is now a reliever in the Padres' bullpen and joins Tom Everidge and Dallas Braden as the only former Gold Sox to play in a Major League game.

3 — 'Sweep'less in Seattle

For three straight seasons, the Gold Sox had to look up in the HASS standings and see the Seattle Studs sitting on top.

Coming into this season, the Studs owned the Gold Sox, holding a 5-1 record all-time against Marysville. It didn't take much for the Sox to get amped up for this June series.

These were the games the players had circled on the schedule.

Marysville eventually swept all three games from Seattle by scores of 7-6, 1-0 and 11-3. That series ended up being the deciding factor in the HASS standings as the Gold Sox won the division by two games.

2 — 16 and counting...

If the Gold Sox can win every game this weekend it will have been a month since they lost a game.

Dating back to a July 8 victory over the Nevada Bighorns, Marysville has won 16 straight, breaking the franchise record of 13 consecutive victories set back in 2006.

An even 20 to end the season will be a perfect way to end the summer.

1) Simply 'Gold'en

When Brandon Creel recorded the game-ending strikeout on Sunday night, the mass of Gold Sox players clad in retro uniforms rushed the area in front of the pitcher's mound and dogpiled to celebrate the team's first HASS title since 2006.

Manager Jack Johnson received the ceremonial Gatorade bath for his first title as the team's manager and players were glowing as they posed for the camera, holding up the No. 1.

Though the 2006 squad is considered to be the best Gold Sox team ever, the 2011 version of the Sox has a legitimate argument to be in the discussion.

Both teams won titles, however this year's team owns the longest winning streak. Additionally, the 2006 team played 50 games that season compared to this year's schedule of 48.

That schedule concludes this weekend with the Sacramento Legends and Solano County Bluebirds. One last opportunity for cowbells, horns, YMCA and Mr. G.

Monday, it's back to reality, whether that's in Indiana, New Mexico, or just down the road in Sacramento, these players had three months of winning baseball to bring back to college programs across the country.

This may be the only winning season some of these players will ever experience.

When recollecting this summer, no one will think about a 3-3 start and a rain-soaked field.

The lasting image is a marquee on the scoreboard in centerfield that read, 'Congrats Gold Sox, 2011 McCullough Division Champs!'