Early exits, heartbreaking losses and sad passings: remembering the worsts of 2022

Some felt so far away, yet so close at the same time.

Some stung for a moment, and some will reverberate for years to come.

On Saturday, we revealed Tucson’s best sports moments of 2022. Here’s a look at the worsts:

It feels like cheating to include this on the list, but of all the teams in the Pac-12 who lose something with the Bruins and Trojans saying so long to the league, it feels like the Wildcats lose the most.

Forget the money, even though the losses in media rights dollars from losing the biggest media market aside from New York is a huge blow to the Cats coffers.

The bigger blow is to Arizona’s spirit. UCLA has been the Wildcats’ biggest men’s basketball rivals for a century; Feb. 19 will be the 100th anniversary of their first meeting. Wooden and Lute. Kerr and Miller. O’Bannon and Terry. Losing that rivalry will be painful to the soul.

In October, owner Brett Johnson announced FC Tucson — one of Tucson’s three professional sports teams — was being sold, and that the club would no longer play in USL League One.

While the USL League One franchise is leaving, FC Tucson will stay — albeit in a lower league. Coach Jon Pearlman acquired the rights to FC Tucson’s name and logo, and will reintroduce the club next season as a USL League Two expansion franchise.

It’s a return to “pre-professional” soccer for FC Tucson, which played from 2012-19 in the USL Premier Development League, which then became League Two.

If Pearlman and his ownership team are successful — and if the club can find a long-term stadium solution — Tucson could return to the pro ranks soon. Pearlman has the option to return his club to USL League One.

A former star at Canyon Del Oro High School before playing at Stanford and in the NFL, Martinez is one of the great football products in Tucson history.

The longtime linebacker announced his retirement from the Las Vegas Raiders in November, roughly 14 months after suffering a torn ACL in Week 3 of the 2021 campaign with the New York Giants. That came a year after he signed with the Giants after four incredibly productive seasons with the Green Bay Packers.

From 2017-20, Martinez averaged nearly 150 tackles per season. Had he remained healthy, who knows how long he could’ve played?

During the 2020-21 season, a late-season two-game losing streak and an early exit in the Pac-12 Tournament did little to halt the success of Adia Barnes’ Wildcats women’s basketball squad. Despite the 1-3 finish, Arizona won five straight in the NCAA Tournament to advance to the title game, which it lost in heartbreaking fashion, 54-53.

Arizona also finished 1-3 in the 2021-22 season — only this time, the Cats could not regain their composure in the NCAA Tournament. After beating UNLV in a raucous McKale Center in the first round, the UA fell to No. 5-seeded North Carolina, 63-45, in the second round.

Maybe it was foolish to expect another title game appearance. But it still hurt.

Losing out on the postseason is a tough pill to swallow. For Arizona, it was made tougher by a four-game gauntlet that must rank among the most difficult in the nation.

It’s hard to imagine a tougher stretch than games versus Oregon, at Washington, versus USC, at Utah and at UCLA — teams that finished the regular season ranked 14th, 12th, 8th, 10th and 18th, respectively.

That the Wildcats were left standing after those first four games is impressive enough. Beating the Bruins at the Rose Bowl following that month-long stretch? Truly incredible.

Losses in the win column hurt. Losses from the roster, particularly one like Dorian Singer, are really painful.

Arizona’s prolific passing game featured a tremendous trio in Singer, Jacob Cowing and Tetairoa McMillan. Now Singer is gone, and worse, he’s left for USC, making an already potent offense that much more dangerous. It’s one thing to lose him to the SEC or the Big-12. It’s another to have to cover him and Caleb Williams.

Singer wasn’t the only notable Wildcat to pack up and leave in 2022. Catcher Sharlize Palacios and outfielder Janelle Meoño, two of Arizona’s best softball players, announced in August that they were leaving the Wildcats for rival UCLA.

Had Tommy Lloyd somehow managed to hang onto Bennedict Mathurin, Christian Koloko and Dalen Terry, Arizona would’ve been the preseason No. 1 and the favorites to win the whole thing.

The Wildcats still maintained plenty of talent, but their Big 3 ranked among the best in the country. Mathurin was the Pac-12 Player of the Year, Koloko its Defensive Player of the Year and Most Improved Player and Terry a first-team all-defensive selection and all-league honorable mention.

Gary Williams loved the rodeo like few others, and he particularly loved La Fiesta De Los Vaqueros Tucson Rodeo. He was the event’s first paid employee and served as general manager for more than a quarter century before announcing his retirement in December 2020.

He was disappointed to retire just as the 2021 rodeo was cancelled because of COVID-19 for just the second time in its existence, but he was excited to see leadership pass to a new generation. His death in October was a stark blow to the Tucson and rodeo communities.

Sadly for Tucson, Williams was one of a handful of luminaries to die in 2022.

Mary Hines, the first woman elected to the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame, died in November at age 93. Last week, Ed Updegraff, the leading amateur golfer in Tucson history, died at age 100.

After bouncing back from a so-so start to advance to the NCAA Tournament, the Arizona softball team found its way under first-year head coach Caitlin Lowe. The former Wildcat great guided the Wildcats through the NCAA Regionals in Missouri and to a sweep of Mississippi State in the Super Regionals.

Then the Cats ran into Oklahoma City near its own home turf in the first game of the Women’s College World Series, sending Arizona into a do-or-die scenario. Just three days later, the Wildcats’ season ended with a 5-2 loss to Texas.

Arizona’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2018 was in some ways more frustrating than its last. That squad lost in the first round to No. 13-seeded Buffalo, 89-68. Embarrassing.

This one lost in the Sweet 16 to No. 5 seed Houston, 72-60. Heartbreaking, if only because this version of the Wildcats was Arizona’s best in a half-decade.

The Wildcats entered the tournament as a No. 1 seed and the No. 2 team in the country. Losing in the Sweet 16 was not part of the plan.