Erin DiMeglio has had one heck of a year.

South Plantation quarterback Erin DiMeglio sports her homecoming tiara — Twitter

First, the South Plantation (Fla.) High senior made national headlines by becoming the first female to line up at quarterback in a varsity football game in the state of Florida. Fittingly, she followed that up by becoming the first female quarterback in Florida to complete a varsity pass. Now, DiMeglio has earned an area spotlight for a polar opposite focus: She's South Plantation's homecoming queen.

DiMeglio was officially crowned as the queen of her school's homecoming court during halftime of her team's game against Hollywood Hills (Fla.) High. The honor came in the midst of South Plantation's 18-0 victory, though the contest was tight enough that DiMeglio spent the entire game on the bench as a backup.

Despite the lack of game action, the night unquestionably belonged to DiMeglio, a star on the school's basketball and flag football teams who took a spot on the boys football squad after her coach encouraged her to use the team's 7-on-7 scrimmages as a platform for training for flag football. Fittingly, DiMeglio even shared a passing connection with the school's homecoming king, quite literally: Senior homecoming king Hordley Seide doubles as one of DiMeglio's receivers.

"I was surprised, because a lot of girls at this school, they know a lot of people," DiMeglio told CBS Miami of the honor she received as part of the homecoming court.

Regardless of the fact that the homecoming court is quite openly a blatant popularity contest, DiMeglio and her mother were both pleased with her in-game coronation, which they felt proved that she is more than just an athlete.

One of the top quarterbacks in the state of Tennessee may have seen his college football dreams go up in smoke after he was charged with rape in connection with an incident that allegedly may have impregnated a 12-year-old girl with whom he had consensual sex.

Mount Pleasant quarterback Princeton Harlan — Rivals.com

As reported by the Nashville Tennessean and a variety of other outlets, Mount Pleasant (Tenn.) High quarterback Princeton Harlan, a dual-threat quarterback who has received recruiting attention from the likes of Auburn, Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Mississippi State, among other schools, was arrested on charges of rape of a child after an investigation determined that Harlan had consensual sex with a 12-year-old Tennessee girl.

The investigation allegedly began after the victim reportedly went to her mother and told her that she thought she was pregnant. Testing later determined that the middle schooler was in fact pregnant, but it remains uncertain if Harlan is the father; two of Harlan's teammates were also arrested on similar charges after it was determined that they also had consensual intercourse with the 12-year-old, with all three sexual interactions coming on different occasions. Those players' names have not been released because they are still juveniles.

"Rape of a child is different than rape," Maury County Sherriff's Department detective Anthony Bailey told the Tennessean. "There's no forced intercourse involved. Rape of a child is anybody under the age of 13 cannot consent to sex. It doesn't matter if it's forced or not forced."

The sexual interactions between the Mount Pleasant players and the girl allegedly occurred over the summer -- Bailey cited July 1 as a prospective date -- with the girl reporting her feared pregnancy to her mother after the school year had begun, starting a Maury County police investigation that culminated in the charge that will almost certainly end Harlan's collegiate football opportunities.

In September, Prep Rally covered the story of Michael Pollock, a head football coach at Americus-Sumter (Ga.) High who was suspended indefinitely for kicking one of his players in the rear end during a practice.

Americus-Sumter head coach Michael Pollock — Americus-Sumpter football

Now he's a former head football coach.

As reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Pollock was officially dismissed from his role at Americus-Sumter after the Sumter County Board of Education voted to terminate the coach's contract. The dismissal ends a successful stint at the school for Pollock, who led the school to the only two winning records in school history; Americus-Sumter finished 7-5 in 2010 and 6-5 in 2011.

The coach, who also had a successful stint leading Valdosta (Ga.) High to a 19-6 overall record in 2000 and 2001, has been suspended since Sept. 14 in connection with the kicking incident, which involved an unnamed Americus-Sumter player at a team practice. The team has been led by offensive coordinator Chris Wade since Pollock's initial suspension and has rattled off three consecutive wins, improving to 4-1 overall in 2012.

Pollock has yet to speak publicly about his official firing, but he expressed dismay to the Albany Herald shortly after his initial suspension, saying that his dismissal would bring disturbing instability to a program he had built up since the school opened in 2004.

There are any number of physical gifts that a runner needs to be successful in a cross country race. He or she needs physical endurance to maintain a blistering pace across a three-mile course. A runner needs tenacity to deal with unexpected physical challenges like sudden hills or a previously unseen root or branch that could trip them up. In connection with that, they need keen eyesight to avoid those obstacles as reliably as possible.

Blind cross country runner Bobby Steele and a guide — MLive.com

Now one runner is ignoring any reliance on that last physical gift, for a simple reason: He's completely blind.

As reported by The Saginaw News and the Detroit Free Press, Frankenmuth (Mich.) High senior cross country runner Bobby Steele has competed since his sophomore season with the aid of a running guide, thwarting the need that all other runners have for simple sight. When he first began in 2010, Steele competed on the Frankenmuth junior varsity team, but he has since grown into a full-fledged member of the school's varsity team, not to mention one of the most popular and inspiring runners in all of Michigan.

According to Steele, the experience has been incredibly rewarding, even if it wasn't his idea to begin with.

"My dad decided for me," Steele told the News. "I came home one day during the summer and he said, 'By the way, you're running cross country.' I didn't really want to. How many people really want to run 3.1 miles just for the fun of it?

"But I went along with it. It's worked out. It's a lot of fun. I told my dad, 'You should try this too.'"

Steele has shown rapid improvement since he first set out to complete a rugged 3.1-mile course in a competitive meet. The senior began cross country with the simple goal of trying to complete a race in 30:00. He had already got that time down to 26:30 during his first year on the team, and now he's much faster, completing the course at the Tri-Valley League East Division meet in 23:38.

That time is good for mile splits below eight miles, a respectable total for any runner, let alone one who is completely blind and can't see where he is going on a course designed to trip him up with unexpected and ill-timed challenges.

In the process of his incredible improvement, Steele has proven too fast to be led by a single cross country guide, either. Like all blind runners, Steele completes races with the aid of a runner who is trained to go at his pace and lead him safely with a rope. The two don't hold hands, but they are connected by the rope between them. For his first two seasons, Steele's guide was Frankenmuth assistant coach Wayne Kneiper, who had no trouble maintaining his mile times of roughly 10-minute splits.

Now, Steele runs his guides ragged, as one told the Free Press' Mick McCabe.

"You have to talk turns, if there is going to be a change -- uphill, downhill," Jeff Frahm, one of the guides, told the Free-Press. "You spend a fair amount of time talking as well as running. If it gets really narrow through the woods, we have to shorten up a little bit, he might hold on to my arm instead of the tether."

Sometimes a team needs more than a creative offensive game plan and stout defensive performance to get a win. Sometimes it just needs some luck.

That certainly appears to have been the case in California, where Paradise (Calif.) High eventually emerged on top of Enterprise (Calif.) High, 42-41 in overtime. There were dozens of moments of offensive fireworks that contributed to the final scoreline, but none may have been more important than one incredibly fortuitous bounce that helped give Paradise a key third-quarter touchdown that set the stage for the final period and overtime to come.

As you can see in the video above, Paradise was facing a third-and-8 from its own 35-yard line when quarterback Tom Hays dropped back and surveyed the field for any glimpse of an open receiver. Eventually, he caught sight of senior receiver Johnny Porter, who had gained a step on his defender downfield.

Hays let fly with a pass under pressure, but his ball didn't appear to have the arm strength to get to Porter, who was quickly advancing through the teeth of the Enterprise defense. Fortunately for Paradise, the pass would get an unexpected helping hand from Enterprise defensive back Brock Barr, who tried to intercept the pass but couldn't handle the ball.

Instead, the pass ricocheted back out into the open, where Porter was waiting for it with open arms. He was still too far downfield to pull in the pass cleanly, but the senior receiver was able to get one hand on the ball, and that was all he needed to set up a catch and run to the end zone, with Porter eluding two dramatic attempts at tackles as he sprinted toward the right sideline and, eventually, a touchdown.

Ben Baltz is carried to the finish line after his prosthetic leg broke during a youth triathlon — Kim Baltz photo

What could have been a heart-breaking conclusion to a young cancer survivor's triathlon instead emerged as one of the year's most inspiring moments when he was instead scooped up by a Marine and carried to the finish line.

As reported by ABC News, CNN and a variety of other outlets, 11-year-old Ben Baltz was competing in the Sea Turtle childrens triathlon when his prosthetic leg broke roughly halfway through the final one-mile run that concluded the event, with a screw coming loose and the prosthetic buckling and breaking as a result.

For Baltz, who lost the lower portion of his right leg during a battle with bone cancer at the age of 6, the broken prosthetic was just the most recent of some 10 that he has shattered during his very active youth. Still, Baltz had never broken a prosthetic in the middle of a race, and the accident came a half a mile from the finish line, a distance much too far for Baltz to complete on a single leg.

Ben Baltz competes in a previous triathlon — CaringBridge.org

That's when a group of Marines sprung into action. Pfc. Matt Morgan, a 19-year-old Marine from San Diego who was volunteering at the kids event ran up to check on Baltz, who scrambled to fix his prosthetic after he collapsed when it broke. After a few moments of fumbling with the now shattered prosthetic, Morgan realized that the boy would be unable to finish the race under his own power, so he instinctively scooped up Baltz and began to run toward the finish line.

"He said no, he'd finish by himself and he continued to try and fix his prosthetic. But after a couple seconds, he knew there was something wrong with it and he was going to need a hand," Morgan told ABC News. "He was going to finish the race no matter what, but I told him to jump on and we finished the race together."

What happened next was even more moving, if possible. Once Morgan started running toward the finish line with Baltz on his back, all the other Marines on the course began lining up behind the piggyback pair in double file, creating an impromptu military procession all the way through the finish line, leaving nary a dry eye along the course.

When Baltz's mother, Kim Baltz, first saw her son being carried toward the finish line, it was almost too much for her to maintain her composure.

All night, Ravenna (Ohio) High quarterback Tate Bennett had been off his game. The quarterback finished just 9 for 19 through the air for a grand total of 88 yards. He was also intercepted twice by the Field (Ohio) High defense. In short, he had a truly forgettable game.

Yet, when his career ends, a play from Ravenna's stunning, come-from-behind, 15-14 victory will almost certainly stand out as his most memorable, as Bennett completed a behind-the-back, over-the-head, desperation pass in the end zone with just 39 seconds remaining in the game.

As you can see in the video from TV2 Kent State University above, the pass was caught for a game-winning touchdown by sophomore Warren Bradley, sending the Ravenna sideline into delirium and the Field players -- who thought they had pinned Bennett down for an almost certainly game-ending sack -- loitering stunned on a field of bedlam.

"I just threw the ball into the end zone -- I had no idea where it was going to go," Bennett told the Portage County Record Pub. "I just really was hoping that someone would make a play."

That someone was Bradley, who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. The running back made his way to the center of the end zone and Bennett's "miracle final play" happened to land right in his hands.

One of the announcers dubbed Bennett's aerial touchdown a "wedding bouquet pass," which isn't quite fair, though it speaks volumes about how widespread terminology coined following Tumwater (Wash.) High's now famous two-point conversion has become.

To wit, the wedding bouquet passes thrown by Tumwater quarterback Jayden Croft and Oakmont (Calif.) quarterback Tyler Laird were both clearly intentional. Crazy though they were, both plays were drawn up that way on the chalkboard by the wild and zany coaches who dreamed them up.

That wasn't the case with the miraculous Bennett-to-Bradley connection, which was pure spur of the moment invention on the part of a desperate quarterback just trying to avoid a game-ending sack.

On Tuesday, Prep Rally reported a disturbing incident in Michigan, where a player from one team assaulted a 67-year-old assistant coach for an opponent. Now the sordid incident appears to have devolved into an even more contentious affair, with a defensive coordinator for the team whose player was responsible for the assault fired over the weekend after he reviewed video of the incident and sent an email to school administrators advocating for staff firings related to the incident.

As reported by Michigan Live, former West Bloomfield (Mich.) High defensive coordinator Phil Sacha claims he was fired shortly after he reviewed footage of the assault and wrote an email to West Bloomfield administrators. The assistant coach contended that the accounts of the incident that were being disseminated in the press --which claimed that a number of players were involved in a kerfuffle that precipitated the assault on a Stoney Creek (Mich.) High coach -- were inaccurate and that the only player involved in the attack was the player who threw the punch himself.

"[The victim] had zero chance to defend himself," Sacha told MLive. "From the film, [it looked at first] that coaches were entangled; it almost looked like a shouting match."

Former West Bloomfield defensive coordinator Phil Sacha — Facebook

Regardless of the conditions that led to the fight itself, the details that have emerged about Sacha's dismissal are disconcerting in themselves. Sacha claims that he composed a scathing email about the incident to school officials shortly after reviewing the incident during his weekly film recap of the Friday night game because, after reaching the nasty postgame altercation, he became so disappointed in the program that he abandoned further review of the tactics in the game and opted instead to write to school officials expressing his distress about the lack of accountability and the general direction of the program.

"Dear God, it just re-lived the embarrassment for me," Sacha told Mlive Detroit. "After that, instead of breaking down film [further], I spent a long time trying to put together an e-mail [to West Bloomfield coaches and administrators]."

Sacha claims that it was that email that instead led to his own dismissal, perhaps out of a preemptive attempt by embattled West Bloomfield coach Ron Bellamy to safeguard his own future.