SPORTS & MORE: MERMORIAL DAYS SPORTS

Key West pitcher Chloe Gilday sends one over the plate to help lead her team further than it's ever been, to the final four of the state championships. CAROLINE SMITH/Keys Weekly

It’s over. My teams are done. Finished. I could swear, but I won’t. The Key West High girls’

softball team lost their state final four opening game, 3-1, last Thursday. Miesha Hernandez’s homerun and Chloe Gilday’s pitching weren’t quite enough.

The girls and coach Jesse Garcia have come home, full of disappointment. I’m disappointed, too. A first state championship alongside the baseball team’s 11 titles would have been so delightful. But competing at the highest level was very satisfying. The team finished with 19 wins, 4 losses and 1 tie, with a Region 4A championship. The boys’ season was exceptional, too. The boys were 22-7 and won the Region 4-A semifinal. Those may be the best combined seasons ever.

THE MIAMI HEAT, for whom my neighbor, Sam, and I root for almost every game the team plays, finally lost a fourth game of a best four-of-seven playoff series. The big seventh game was with Boston and the final score was 100-96 Boston. It could have been a different result if a 16-seconds-left three-point shot by Jimmy Butler had gone through. Not to fault Butler, though. He scored 35 points.

Boston begins the best-four-of-seven championship at San Francisco on Thursday, June 2, opposing Golden State.

I agree with Heat coach Eric Spoelstra. You don’t wait five minutes to negate a three-point goal

because Heat player Max Strus stepped a fraction of an inch out of bounds. Three more points at that time might have made a different result. I don’t agree with Spoelstra’s substitute policy, though.

Spoelstra played P.J. Tucker and Tyler Herro (7 minutes, 0 points) only in the first half. Other bench players who have normally played creditable minutes – Duncan Robinson, Caleb Martin and Dwayne Dedmon – played not at all.

THERE WERE PLENTY OF other super sports on Sunday.

The French Open tennis tournament was just getting to its good matches. It was on, beginning at 6 a.m., if you were interested. There were golf tournaments, the PGA Charles Schwab Challenge final round, the LPGA Bank of Hope Match-Play finals and the final round of the Kitchenaid Senior PGA championship. Enough for any lover of the game.

There were other sports events on the tube on the real Memorial Day – if you were interested.

You didn’t have to be bored.

MARCUS ERICSSON HAD NOT been there before – in the winner’s circle of Sunday’s

Indianapolis 500 – but he certainly knew what to do.

First he put on a Goodyear cap – with several sponsor caps to come. Then there was the Borg Warner wreath of flowers draped around his neck. A bottle of milk, which he immediately poured over his head – in this case, on top of the cap. The queen of the weekend’s festivities did her duties by kissing him on the cheek and then closer to his mouth.

The driver from Sweden had already hugged Chip Gannasi, the owner of his race car.

The race before 325,000 patrons and millions more on TV had been exciting from start to finish.

There were a dozen or so accidents, one when former NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson’s car blew a tire with six laps to go. That brought out a red flag to stop all action. A few minutes later, the remaining cars lined up behind Ericsson, who a few laps previously had been in seventh place.

The unluckiest of drivers was Scott Dixon, who during the race set the record for most laps to lead the 500. Late in the race, as the leader, he went to the pits to replenish gasoline. But, as he entered the pits, to get the fuel, he drove too fast and was penalized with an extra trip to his pits. That allowed a series of drivers, including Johnson, to get a lap or two in first place.

Ericsson was assigned first at the beginning of the final two laps. His only challenges came from Pato O’Ward, who told an announcer that if he had seriously tried to pass Ericsson, “he would have put me in the wall.” He finished second.

I ALSO WATCHED MEMORIAL DAY weekend’s other big auto race: the Coca-Cola 600 at

Charlotte, North Carolina. I have been to several Indianapolis 500s (maybe a half dozen) and only a NASCAR race at Watkins Glen, New York. But thanks to television, I’ve become a NASCAR fan.

In the past, some drivers have tried unsuccessfully to run in both races. None this year.

This was as exciting a Coca-Cola 600 as there has been, according to those who know. It took a pair of overtimes and, of course, the race ended with a wreck. That left it for Kenny Hamlin to circle the carnage and claim the victory.

Hamlin said on television, “That was the last big one that’s not on my resume.”

It is now. And the first two slots are on Joe Gibbs Racing’s resume as Kyle Busch finished second.

Wow, what a day. Let’s do it again tomorrow.

Veteran sports columnist Ralph Morrow says the only sport he doesn’t follow is cricket. That leaves plenty of others to fill his time.