Championship week may be the most exciting seven days of the Division III season since it involves so many teams and so many great games. But there is a bittersweet part to Championship week as it marks the end of a very special part of many players’ lives. That’s a large part of the desperation, one of the key ingredients to the week’s many exciting finishes.

Many seniors will never put on a jersey again after the final horn sounds, which makes for very emotional scenes. I never fail to find those scenes powerful, gripping and, in some cases, heart breaking.

One of the more wrenching scenes came in a Pennsylvania Athletic Conference final two years ago between Cabrini and Alvernia. The Cavs were trying to extend a season that was painful. Long time head coach John Dzik was leaving, close loses were mounting and the players were clearly feeling the affects. But the painful nature of the season didn’t make its preservation any less precious.

In the closing moments of an eventual loss, senior point guard Messiah Reames fouled out trying to make one more play to keep Cabrini’s season alive. As he realized that his college playing career was done, he flung his headband to the floor with tears streamed down his face and the famous “nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-hey-hey-hey goodbye” raining down on him. It was striking how much this brutal, train wreck of a season meant to him.

ATN’s lead writer took in Mike Hoyt’s last game last night in the Skyline Quarterfinals. If you haven’t read that entry yet, stop reading this right now and please go do so. Seriously. I’ll wait.

Hoyt isn’t the only Preseason All American who has already finished his career. Last night Zack Freeman played his last game for Illinois Wesleyan, notching one more double-double (18 points, 13 rebounds) for the Titans.

Zak Ray also finished his career at Bates College on Saturday, scoring 30 points in the Bobcats’ loss to No. 3 Amherst in the NESCAC Quarterfinals. Ray has been the consummate teammate, using his passing abilities to make his teammates better. Here’s what Ray told the Bangor Daily News earlier this year.

“A thousand points to me means I’ve been consistent since I’ve been here and I’ve given everything I have to give. It’s not just me who scored the 1,000 points. It’s my teammates and the guys who set screens for me…Rob [Stockwell] got 1,000 last year and the first thing he said to me was, ‘I couldn’t have done it without you’ and I feel the same way.”

Monica Johnson ended her career at Lebanon Valley relatively quietly in that her team didn’t qualify for the MAC Commonwealth Playoffs. But she went out with the heart and fight you’d expect from a Preseason All American, putting up 22 points and 17 rebounds against Susquehanna.

If you have a story about these players or any others who are finishing a very special part of their lives this week, please take a moment to share it below.