The times sports made you smile in this year

Sports contributed plenty of the same old agita this year — bad bets, empty boasts, taunts, tiffs and scuffles, plus the occasional riot — but its fair share of wry smiles, too. Here are some of the most heartwarming moments of 2018:

LOYOLA’S SECRET WEAPON

Never mind that Sister Jean Delores Schmidt arrived at the Final Four a few months shy of 99. Or that her last minute of playing time — for her girls' high school team — was chalked up in the late 1930s. Or that she's listed in the team media guide (way too generously) at 5-foot, wearing custom-made maroon and gold-trimmed Nikes that would make any baller proud.

Because every time little Loyola of Chicago sprung another upset on its improbable run to the Final Four, Coach Porter Moser and his Ramblers' postgame interviews were just the opening act. If you really wanted to know how a small Jesuit university kept knocking over rivals twice its size — the tactics AND the theology behind it — you stuck a microphone in front of Sister Jean.

The team's chaplain, unofficial scout and eternal optimist was a natural on TV. Rarely at a loss for words, she wasn't shy about crediting faith for Loyola's surprising basketball bounty, either. She had a wicked sense of humor to boot. As the season of Lent — 46 days when Christians swear off worldly pleasures ahead of Easter — was nearing its end with the Ramblers still playing, a CBS reporter leaned in:

"What did you give up for Lent?" she asked.

Sister Jean smiled. "Losing," she said. A bobblehead was commissioned. The "Today" show came calling. After the Ramblers lost the semifinal, she spent the next few months recuperating from hip surgery, celebrating a birthday and collecting awards. But she was back in her office by the start of the new basketball season, updating scouting reports and tailoring pregame prayers.

"When we came off the court after the Michigan loss, the players said to me, 'Don't worry Sister Jean, we'll do it again next year,'" she recalled, then bowed her head, smiled and sighed.

‘I DIDN’T THINK, I JUST RAN OVER THERE’

Ty Koehn and Jack Kocon were buddies dating back to Little League. In early June, in the ninth inning of a Minnesota high school baseball sectional final, they stood 60 feet, 6 inches apart.

Koehn, on the mound, was putting the finishing touches on a 4-0 win for Mounds View High. Kocon, attheplateforTotino-Grace High, was the last out in his way. Three strikes later, Koehn's teammates raced out of the dugout and began celebrating on the mound. But their star pitcher was somewhere else, standing at home plate with his arms around Kocon.

"I told him I loved him," Koehn said afterward, "and he's my brother and our friendship will always last longer than this silly game and its silly outcome."

A video capturing that moment went viral, but no one who knew the young men was surprised.

"He's a tremendous competitor," Mounds View coach Mark Downey said about Koehn, "but he understands there is a bigger picture."