For John Cooper, the year was obvious.

The actual game, however, required some thought.

In trying to decide his Most Memorable Moment as Panther Valley’s head baseball coach, Cooper quickly turned the clock back to 2003, the year the Panthers captured a district championship.

And while the PV mentor - who guided the program from 2002 through 2016 - nearly picked the title-clinching contest against Schuylkill Haven, he instead opted for the previous game for various reasons.

On May 28, 2003, Panther Valley faced Marian in the class A semifinals at Northwestern High School. The Panthers had defeated Notre Dame (East Stroudsburg) by a 17-10 score six days earlier in the quarterfinals.

The Colts had beaten PV twice during the regular season, including a lopsided contest the last time the two teams had played.

“It’s the most memorable because that’s the one we needed to get to the championship game that year,” said Cooper about the semifinal game 17 years ago. “If we would not have won it, obviously we wouldn’t have earned the chance to play in the biggest game of the year that season.

“Plus, Marian had beaten us twice that year, including a 20-3 beating (about two) weeks prior to the playoff game.”

The pair of losses to their rivals could have discouraged the Panthers, but instead the players used those defeats as motivation.

“When we saw the seedings, we knew we had to get past Notre Dame of East Stroudsburg,” said Cooper. “I told the kids, ‘If we beat Notre Dame of East Stroudsburg, you’ll get Marian next.’ But I will never forget it. We were talking about it at practice. And one of our senior captains, Zach Maurer, simply said, ‘Good! We’re going to get Marian in the semifinals.’

“It was just one word, but it kind of let everyone know that we weren’t afraid of them. We were excited to play them again even though we did not have success twice against them. That was big on why this game was so memorable.”

Instead of turning to his ace, Justin Jachowicz, in an elimination game, Cooper instead went to a different starting pitcher. And the strategy worked.

“Marian had his (Jachowicz) number a bit,” said Cooper. “So, we gave the ball to (Frank) Maurer. He was a junior that year.”

Maurer came through with probably the biggest game of his career, as he went the distance in leading the Panthers to a 3-2 win. He surrendered only five hits and one walk while striking out 10.

PV gave its hurler an early lead when Jachowicz, who had walked, scored on an error in the first inning.

After Marian pushed across a couple runs to take the lead, the Panthers tied the game in the fourth on a John Stefanick single and an RBI double by John Card.

An inning later, Cooper’s club went ahead after John Koehler reached base on a one-out single and eventually scored on a throwing error on Phil Thompson’s slow roller down the third base line.

“We came up with some timely hitting when we needed to, but the main thing that I remember is just Frank Maurer’s composure on the mound the whole game,” said Cooper. “He did not get rattled. And once we got a lead, he really bore down and pitched well.”

Maurer needed to bare down as the Colts threatened in the final two frames.

First, he stranded a runner in scoring position in the sixth inning. And then he faced a jam, not of his own doing, in the seventh.

“Thompson actually had the out to end the game and I remember that play,” Cooper said. “We had two outs and they had the tying run at first base. We had a ground ball to our shortstop, and instead of doing a flip to second for the out there, he decided to throw across the diamond and it pulled our first baseman off the bag. That put the tying run into scoring position. It gave them runners on first and second with two outs.

“It was kind of like, here goes Marian. It was kind of a scary moment. But I looked out at Maurer, and the expression changed, like the game should have been won. He had every right to be frustrated and to be every bit rattled. But he just took the ball back to the mound and got the next kid to hit a ground ball to second base, and Thompson threw the kid out by a step. It was a slow roller, and a bang-bang play at first, and we were moving onto the finals.”

Two days later, the Panthers again won a one-run decision by defeating Haven 5-4 to earn the district title.

But that victory wouldn’t have been possible without getting past their rivals.

“The culmination of the gold medal and the championship was huge,” Cooper said. “But I know if we hadn’t taken care of business in the Marian game, we would have never had the opportunity to play Schuylkill Haven.”

Cooper didn’t only have a Most Memorable game during his time at Panther Valley. He also had a Most Memorable player.

“I know this was supposed to be an article about my most memorable game, but I can’t look back on my time at Panther Valley without talking about a very memorable player,” said Cooper. “Brandon Blasko was one of our players. He was killed in a car accident two years after graduation. He was a superb outfielder. I still think about him, and I just wanted to mention his impact on the program.”