The 2003-04 San Diego Hoops basketball season championship came down to a battle between Morgan Stanley and Fusion. While Stanley dominated the league for the majority of the season, Fusion slowly built up their team in preparation for the playoffs and final showdown.

In the ’04 championship, Fusion was first on the board and carried a 25-12 lead into halftime. Morgan Stanley tried to stage a comeback in the final minutes of the game, but with Fusion double-teaming Stanley’s leading scorer, Paul Demke, it was too little too late and Fusion won the title 46-31.

“It’s a little hard to take,” Demke said following the game. “It’s the third year in a row that we have been the number-one seed going into the playoffs and then ended up not winning it. They just came out and they played hard defense.”

“I’m very thrilled,” said Stuart Leung, Fusion’s coach, after winning the league championship. “Those guys had us on the ropes the whole season. The old adage, I guess, the third time is the charm. Finally! We all really wanted to beat them and we had a lot of support. I’m just glad we came to play, showed up, did well and we were the aggressors. I don’t think they were used to that.”

The America’s Finest City Softball league continues to be the largest gay sports league in San Diego, and next year the league will be hosting the largest annual gay sporting event in North America, the Gay Softball World Series, last held here in 1997. Opening ceremonies for the games kick off Aug. 14; the championship will be held Aug. 20.

San Francisco was the site of the 2004 International Gay and Lesbian Football Association’s annual world championship. Teams from across the country and as far away as Australia and Japan took part in the international tournament to crown the soccer champions in three divisions of play.

San Diego’s Sparks merged with players from Seattle to field a full team, and the combination proved to be a winning one. In round-robin tournament play, the Sparks went 3-3 and ended up as one of the top seeds in Division 2.

“We played very well in the first three days, which determined which division we were going to be in,” said Leslie Randolph, the Sparks’ founder and coach, noting that the team won all three of their morning games and lost all three of their afternoon games. “But at the end of it, we ended up in a three-way tie with Los Angeles and another team. Because of the goal differential and a game that we had lost head-to-head with Los Angeles, that we lost by one goal… we ended up being in Division 2 and we won all of our games from there on out.”

In single elimination play, the Sparks beat team Samurai of Japan and Hotlanta to qualify for the finals, where they defeated Vancouver’s Just for Kicks 4-1.

In its inaugural season this year, flag football scored big in San Diego, kicking off with four teams participating. The Dave & Busters Broncos won the division outright, beating three other teams over the course of regular season play. The first annual Surf-N-Turf bowl was a huge success, drawing teams from across the country. To top it off, San Diego has been chosen to host Gay Super Bowl V, taking place Oct. 9.