In a sense, it was just another year of high school sports in Rhode Island — 25,000 student-athletes playing for 1,000 teams in 7,000 games, matches and meets. But the wonderful thing about high school sports is that while the numbers are basically the same every year, each year produces special moments. So here’s a look some of those special accomplishments I remember from the 2006-07 school season.

The Scituate girls team could have continued playing in the lower ranks of the R.I. Interscholastic League’s soccer program and nobody would have questioned the Spartans. After all, Scituate is one of the smallest public high schools in Rhode Island. But the Lady Spartans and their veteran coach, Bob Parmenter, felt you don’t need to come from a big school to be big time. So after winning the Division II title in the fall of 2005, the Spartans moved up to Division I for the 2006 season. They posted a respectable 7-4-5 record during the regular season, then began an amazing run through the state playoffs that culminated with a 1-0 victory over La Salle, the five-time defending state champion, in the state title game.

In this day and age, a public school of Scituate’s size winning the state’s major girls soccer title is one of the most amazing accomplishments in the history of Rhode Island high school girls sports.

•One day in March, North Kingstown freshman Elizabeth Beisel delivered the most dominant performance ever in a Rhode Island high school state swim meet. Two weeks later, she was in Melbourne, Australia, competing for the U.S. National team in the World Swim Championships.

•It wasn’t a thing of beauty, but the Thanksgiving Day football game between East Providence and La Salle became one of the most memorable in the 78-year history of the state’s oldest intrastate holiday rivalry.

The fact that the Townies and Rams played in a wind-driven rain, when almost every other game in the state had been postponed that morning, certainly helped to make it memorable.

But for East Providence fans, it was much more than just the elements that made the day unforgettable. No East Providence fan will ever forget the day a Townies team that was outweighed by nearly 100 pounds per man on the offensive line earned a share of the regular-season title with a 12-8 victory over a previously undefeated La Salle team.

•Three years ago, Victoria Flowers didn’t even know high school girls did things like throw the hammer and discus and heave a shot put in track meets. Now the Classical High junior, who won the hammer and shot put titles at the state meet a few weeks ago, has coaches from some of the most prestigious colleges in the country coming to see her perform because she has become one of the top female high school weight competitors in the country.

•Their names were Winston Smith, João Moreno and Juan Velez, and one day last November we sat in the principal’s office at Hope High talking about how the trio and their teammates on the Hope boys soccer team had done more than simply win a state championship.

A few days earlier, Hope had become the first team from a public inner-city school to win the state’s major soccer title in two decades, and in so doing had proved that kids from the city do understand the game isn’t just about individual achievement. It was a group that learned the mixture of talent, teamwork and discipline can produce unexpected results. It was a continuation of a new educational initiative at Hope. “It’s all about being lifelong learners and productive workers,” said Wayne Montague, one of the three Hope principals.

•North Providence’s Pam Emery established her credentials as one of the state’s all-time top female tennis players as the Cougars’ junior became the seventh player in the 30-year history of the Interscholastic League girls state singles tournament to win more than one state title by rolling through the state tourney with five consecutive straight-sets triumphs back in October.

•There had been no formal announcement, no press release that one of the most successful coaches in Rhode Island high school sports would be retiring. But word had gotten around East Providence that this would be Luis Carvalho’s final season as coach of the Townies’ girls volleyball team. So on a night in early November, a large group of former players and the parents of former players came to the East Providence High gym to see Carvalho coach his final home game and thank him for giving them and their daughters a chance to be part of something special.

•Any time Mount St. Charles and Hendricken meet in a winner-take-all third game of the state hockey tournament it’s a special experience, and this year’s deciding game of the state title series was no exception.

•Speaking of hockey, Bay View and Mount St. Charles added another chapter to what has become an exciting girls hockey rivalry as the Bengals and Mounties shared the regular-season Division I championship with 15-2 records, then met in the state title series for the third straight year.

•Ben Conway carding birdies on the final two holes to win the state individual golf championship only four years after he first stepped on a golf course was a testament to what a teenager can accomplish if he is willing to work at it.

•In reality, it was a matter of good forechecking and solid backchecking, but you would like to think the hockey gods played a role in Smithfield’s Reynolds Lillibridge ending his 40-year high school coaching career at center ice at Schneider Arena accepting the Division II state championship plaque.

•Basketball is said to be a city game, so it was only appropriate that on an afternoon in March it was basketball that helped gain attention for two of Providence’s innovative educational projects as Juanita Sanchez won the Division III boys state title and Feinstein notched its second straight Division II boys state crown.

•When you have the defending state champion meeting an undefeated team in a state title game, you would expect something special, and the members of the Bay View and La Salle girls basketball teams didn’t disappoint when they met in the Division I championship game at the Ryan Center in March.

•When a nice guy and a great coach reaches the 500-career victory mark, as Ponaganset boys basketball coach George Jacques did this winter, it’s a highlight event

•I think I have given up trying to figure out how the South Kingstown boys tennis team keeps winning state championships. Now I just enjoy watching the Rebels beat the odds year after year.

Last month, for the third consecutive year, the Rebels won the Division I state title by beating teams in the playoffs that they lost to during the regular season. The victory over Barrington, the regular-season champion, in last month’s state title match pushed the Rebels’ record string of consecutive state titles to nine.

•Maybe it was only fitting that the final event of the high school sports season produced one of the best pitching performances even in a Rhode Island state championship baseball game.

For 6 2/3 innings of a seven-inning game last Thursday night at McCoy Stadium, Cranston West junior Anthony Meo held South Kingstown hitless. As the game progressed, people began asking if “there had even been a no-hitter in a Division I state championship game.”

I certainly had never seen one.

Meo eventually lost his no-hit bid on a high-hop ground ball into center field, but he finished with a one-hit shutout, giving Cranston West its second consecutive state title.

•And finally, if there is any question about how important playing sports is to high school students, look at the case of Dave Rittner.

Rittner, a Toll Gate High senior, was a member of the Titans’ boys tennis team. He wasn’t a tennis star, by any means. He was a member of the Titans’ first doubles team, which meant he wasn’t even one of the top-four ranked players on his own team.

What he was top ranked at, however, was his academic pursuits. He was the valedictorian of this year’s Toll Gate graduating class.

Yet in his profile story, which was part of the Journal’s series on this year’s Rhode Island high school valedictorians, Rittner said his favorite moment in high school came last month when he slammed down the point that clinched his team’s first state tennis championship in 26 years.

Here is a young man who obviously had his academic priorities in perfect order, declaring that the favorite moment of his high school career had come in a Division II tennis match.

It was another year of special moments, even for teenagers who didn’t hit title-winning shots or deliver valedictorian speeches.

jgillool@projo.com