Oregon and UCLA also could finish tied for first with wins Sunday.

Johnny Field drove in the winning run on a walk-off single with two outs in the bottom of the ninth at Hi Corbett Field off ASU reliever Robert Ravago. Riley Moore scored the winning run in the Wildcats’ second walk-off win of the weekend series.

No. 13 UA (38-17, 20-10) broke on top 4-0 in the first inning at Hi Corbett Field, upped its lead to 7-1 and held off rival No. 16 ASU (36-20, 18-12). The Wildcats will remain at home for the start of NCAA Tournament play as one of 16 regional hosts, also a first since 1992. ASU is ineligible for postseason due to NCAA sanctions.

Freshman left-hander Adam McCreery pitched 3.2 scoreless innings, allowing the Sun Devils to rally and pull even 7-7 in the eighth inning on a two-run double by Abe Ruiz.

The longtime NHL tough guy doesn’t keep the most infamous stick in Los Angeles Kings history on display, saying it’s not important enough. He’s probably correct: The stick’s proper place is near the billy goat, the Bambino, the cover of the Madden NFL video game and every other supposed curse-carrying item in sports history.

That stick, and McSorley’s resulting penalty for using it, turned the 1993 Stanley Cup finals in favor of the Montreal Canadiens, who knocked off the Kings in Los Angeles’ only previous trip to the finals before this season. The Kings will take their second shot at their first NHL title starting Wednesday at New Jersey.

McSorley has grown weary of talking about that Game 2 disappointment over the past 19 years, yet he also believes the full story of the Canadiens’ skullduggery isn’t known. He hopes the current Kings’ run will help fans finally straighten out their bad feelings about the illegal curve, which gets far too much attention, he insists.

“I think there’s been a degree of sensationalism, a big degree of sensationalism, and I don’t think there’s been a lot of honesty,” McSorley said Sunday. “Did I have an illegal stick? Yes, I did. Did I stand up after the fact and say, ‘Listen, I had an illegal stick?’ Yes, I did. The things that have transpired since then, I don’t think there has been a lot of honesty.”

McSorley quickly makes it clear he’s referring to the widespread belief that the biggest penalty in Kings history was the result of an inside job.

As the much-disputed story goes on Los Angeles’ side of it, the Canadiens did a sneaky investigation of the Kings’ sticks earlier in the series when Los Angeles’ portable stick rack was in Montreal’s locker room — or maybe when the Kings just weren’t looking. Habs coach Jacques Demers knew exactly which sticks to challenge at a key moment, violating all sorts of unwritten codes about sportsmanship and trade secrets.

“I think that (then-Kings coach) Barry Melrose, I think that Luc Robitaille, (former Kings trainer) Peter Demers, different guys around, have basically said what happened,” McSorley said. “We all know they basically pulled the stick rack into their locker room. That’s honest and that’s frank. Am I sitting here complaining? No. But that is what happened. Is it disappointing for me? Yes.”

The Canadiens have long denied it, with Demers crediting captain Guy Carbonneau for spotting McSorley’s illegal stick on the ice. The Kings hear otherwise: Robitaille says he was told by a Montreal policeman that the Canadiens checked out the Kings’ sticks on the sly, while McSorley says he has heard from “three or four” former Canadiens over the years who say they knew of five or six Kings sporting illegal sticks.

“That was an awfully gutsy call without having any information,” McSorley said, laughing.

However Montreal got its info, Demers used it at the perfect time. Los Angeles had won Game 1 in Montreal and was up 2-1 in Game 2 with 1:45 to play when Demers called for a measurement. With McSorley serving his unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, Demers pulled goalie Patrick Roy, setting up Eric Desjardins’ 6-on-4 tying goal. Desjardins scored again early in overtime, and the Canadiens roared through the following three games to claim the Cup.

McSorley readily acknowledges his stick violated the rules, yet he insists he didn’t make it that way: That’s how the sticks arrived from the factory, and other players used the same curve without ever getting penalized. In fact, McSorley says he used sticks with the same curve in the next two finals games with no penalty.

“I think we kind of treated it, at that time, as almost George Brett’s pine-tar (bat),” McSorley said, referring to the infamous 1983 controversy around Brett’s ninth-inning homer at Yankee Stadium, which was erased by a technicality and subsequently restored. “That’s kind of how we treated it. To make a call like that is really, really gutsy. To find out later that they knew, and how they knew, was really, really disappointing.”

McSorley still hears about the stick and the penalty when he appears with Kings alumni. He blames the media for keeping the story alive, yet most Kings fans acknowledge they don’t need the help — there’s even a blog named after McSorley’s stick.

Other fans postulate that Montreal has been hit by a curse every bit as sticky as the Kings’ problems. The Habs haven’t won a championship since raising the Stanley Cup for the 24th time that season, not even making the finals again — and no Canadian team has won the Cup since 1993.

Although McSorley’s broadcasting work regularly takes him to Canada, the Ontario native still lives by the beach with his wife, a former pro volleyball player, and their three young children, including a 3-year-old son who wears his Kings jersey constantly and plays hockey with his dad.

A regular at Staples Center, McSorley is enjoying the Kings’ playoff run every bit as much as his son is.

“It’s a great time for us as alumni to come back,” McSorley said. “We do feel partly responsible, in a really good way. We believe that we’ve helped to grow the fan base and part of the history of this team. That’s a great, great feeling. … It validates to people outside L.A. how strong hockey is here. People are ravenous here for tickets right now.”

He’s also hoping a championship banner would reduce that stick in his closet to a twig in Kings lore.

“If it went to bed, I’m fine with that,” McSorley said.

Here comes the tiebreaker.

Celtics-Heat, one more time — with a berth in the NBA finals as the reward.

For the fifth time in seven years, it’ll be Boston or Miami winning the Eastern Conference championship. Game 1 of that title series is Monday night in Miami, with the Heat saying it almost seemed predestined that they would be seeing the Celtics again, and Boston’s perspective being that the team in green is exactly where it expected to be as well.

“Inevitable. It’s the matchup the game of basketball wants,” Wade said Sunday afternoon. “Obviously, with the Chicago Bulls being out, this is the biggest matchup the Eastern Conference can have. So we accept the challenge and we look forward to the series.”

Added Heat coach Erik Spoelstra: “Was there any doubt that it’d be us and Boston?”

Well, maybe a little.

Spoelstra watched Boston’s Game 7 East semifinal matchup against Philadelphia without a notepad, not wanting to start game planning until the winner was decided. And that didn’t come until late in the night, when Rajon Rondo — forced into the closer’s role after Paul Pierce fouled out with 4:16 left — delivered time and again down the stretch, carrying the Celtics to an 85-75 closeout victory.

“This is a good time right now,” Celtics forward Kevin Garnett said. “This is the cream of the cream. This is what it’s all about, you know, conference finals. We definitely didn’t like the way we left last year. So we’ll see what happens, man. We’ll see what happens. Let’s get it on.”

Miami beat Boston in five games in last year’s East semifinals, and the Celtics took three of four games from Miami this season. Both sides cautioned against reading too much into any of those results.

James said the game changes in the playoffs, even more so as teams get deeper into it. The Celtics know what he wants to do, he knows what the Celtics will try, familiarity born from James having already faced Boston in 18 playoff games — more than any other active player, and more than any club the reigning MVP has squared off with in the postseason.

“I wouldn’t have it no other way, personally,” James said. “It’s really the only team I’m accustomed to playing in the playoffs. No matter where I go, I find a way to play Boston. … We’ve got a lot of history.”

James and the Cleveland Cavaliers lost in seven games to Boston in 2008. In 2010, the Celtics topped the Cavs in six games, one round after easily beating the Heat in a series punctuated by Wade vowing that he wouldn’t lose another first-round series for a long time to come. Last season, Miami’s five-game win was far from easy. And this time, the perception of the Celtics is that they’re old, tired and weary.

The Heat dismiss those notions as “ridiculous,” Spoelstra said.

“No. Get out of here with that,” Wade said. “I don’t believe none of that. No feet hurtin’, no tired, no nothing. This is the Boston Celtics. They’re all 100 percent to me because when they play the Miami Heat, different ballgame and vice versa. Ain’t no story lines, no excuses. … Last year, yeah, we beat them in five, but man, it was like a nine-game series, it felt like.”

Boston did not hold practice Sunday, instead handing out scouting reports and flying to Miami. Celtics coach Doc Rivers was packed with the hopes of making a Miami trip even before Game 7 of the Philly series, just so he could take every possible moment after the game Saturday night to watch film of the Heat, and he planned more of the same on the three-hour flight from Boston.

“We’ll be ready,” Rivers said. “It’s going to be a tough turnaround, but listen, we’re not an excuse team. We’ll be ready on Monday.”

His players said they welcomed the short turnaround.

Ray Allen is hurting and Boston will be without Avery Bradley for the remainder of the season, but the Celtics indicated they would rather just jump into a Miami series and not wait around.

“I kind of like it for us,” Pierce said. “It keeps us in rhythm. It keeps us playing. We’re an older team so we get kind of stiff when we sit around for too long. We like the fact that we’re going to go right into it.”

The Celtics are averaging 88.1 points in the playoffs. James and Wade are averaging nearly 53 in the postseason by themselves, and combined to score 197 in the last three games — all Miami wins — in the second-round series against Indiana, responding to the Heat’s need for them to carry more of the scoring load with Chris Bosh still sidelined indefinitely by a strained lower abdominal muscle.

Clearly, a clash in styles is possible, and the Celtics are leery of what Miami can do in the open floor.

“We will lose in a track meet,” Allen said. “This team, they get up and down the floor. They want to score in transition. They pride themselves off of getting easy baskets. Defensively, we have to get back. Offensively, we can’t play with the ball, we can’t turn the ball over, we can’t not execute.”

All the ingredients are there for drama.

Boston’s Big Four against Miami’s Big Three (minus one). A possible end to this Celtics run, at least with this current core. Miami trying to return to the title series, after falling last year. James’ still-unfulfilled quest for a championship.

Both sides agree, this won’t be easy for either club.

“It’s great theater for the fans and everybody out there,” Spoelstra said. “For us, it’s great competition. That’s what you want at this time of year.”

But there is a long history of sports figures who have served this country.

According to one report, the Baseball Hall of Fame identified 29 Hall of Famers who served in World War II and about 500 major-leaguers in all, including Yogi Berra, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Bob Feller, Pee Wee Reese and Joe Garagiola.

There were even more pro football players who served during WWII, such as Tom Landry and Art Donovan, and 21 lost their lives.

In honor of Memorial Day, here is just a small sampling of real sports heroes to whom we owe our gratitude:

Jack Lummus, WWII

The Giants end received the Congressional Medal of Honor after knocking out three enemy emplacements despite being wounded twice by grenades on Iwo Jima.

Lummus, a Marine Reserve, stepped on a mine and suffered fatal wounds, telling a doctor “the New York Giants lost a mighty good end today.”

Bob Kalsu, Vietnam

The only pro athlete to die in combat during the Vietnam War, Kalsu enlisted in the Army after his rookie season with Buffalo. He died in a 1970 enemy mortar attack.

Rocky Bleier, Vietnam

After his rookie season with the Steelers, Bleier was drafted and volunteered for a tour in Vietnam. His Army patrol was ambushed and he was shot in the left leg, then wounded in the lower right leg by shrapnel from a grenade. He received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

He was waived twice after returning, but persevered and won four Super Bowl rings.

Hank Bauer, WWII

Before a major-league career that saw him win seven World Series titles playing for the Yankees and another as manager of the Orioles, Bauer was hit by shrapnel on Okinawa. He won 11 campaign ribbons, two Purple Hearts and a pair of Bronze Stars.

Al Bumbry, Vietnam

Before winning the AL Rookie of the Year award in 1973 Bumbry led an infantry platoon in Vietnam and won a Bronze Star. Not one soldier who served under him died.

Ted Williams, WWII and Korea

A Marine aviator, Williams served as a flight instructor during WWII, missing three years in his prime. He later flew 39 combat missions in Korea.

Warren Spahn, WWII

Spahn was pitching in the minor leagues when he enlisted in the Army in 1942. He was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and went on to win 363 games in the majors.

Charley Paddock, WWI and WWII

A Marine field-artillery officer during WWI, Paddock won two gold medals and two silvers while competing in track during three Olympics. He then fought during WWII, dying in a 1943 plane crash.

Hoyt Wilhelm, WWII

The first closer inducted into the Hall of Fame first fought in the Battle of the Bulge and won a Purple Heart.

Jerry Coleman, WWII and Korea

Coleman flew 120 Marine combat missions and was awarded 13 Air Medals and two Distinguished Flying Crosses. He went on to win four World Series titles with the Yankees and is a Hall of Fame broadcaster.

Jeremy Staat, Iraq

A teammate of Tillman’s at Arizona State, Staat played in 30 games with the Steelers and Rams before joining the Marines and serving a tour in Iraq.

Monday, he finishes a 100-day, 4,163-mile cross-country bicycle ride at the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., to raise awareness of veteran’s issues such as suicide.

Reach The Heat Index at 602-444-8271 or bob.young@arizonarepublic.com.

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Diamondbacks-Brewers series photos | Sunday’s box score | Twitter updates

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Seven weeks to be exact.

In between, the Diamondbacks lost a franchise-record six consecutive series at Chase Field. The effort landed them in third place in the National League West, and at times they’ve needed binoculars to see the first-place Dodgers.

But Sunday, the streak ended. Arizona got enough timely hitting to overcome some base-running miscues and posted a 4-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers, their second triumph in a three-game set at Chase Field.

Season-defining moment? Not exactly. But it goes give the Diamondbacks a boost for their six-game trip, which begins Monday in San Francisco. It’s also just the second time all month they’ve won back-to-back games. They haven’t won three in a row since April 29-May 1.

In front of 33,481 fans (and 352 dogs as part of a special promotion,) Jason Kubel, Ryan Roberts and Henry Blanco produced clutch hits in the sixth inning. With two out and Aaron Hill on third, Kubel ripped a run-scoring single to center, pulling the Diamondbacks to within 3-2.

After Paul Goldschmidt reached on an error, Roberts knotted the contest with a run-scoring single off Milwaukee relief pitcher Jose Veras. Blanco then delivered a soft base hit into left that gave Arizona a 4-3 lead.

From there, Arizona relievers Brad Ziegler, David Hernandez and closer J.J. Putz protected the lead. Putz recorded his 11th save, but Bryan Shaw might deserve an assist for earlier work.

With Milwaukee leading 3-1 in the sixth, Shaw entered with one out and the bases loaded. With the infield drawn in, Shaw threw one pitch – a 76-mile curveball – which Nyjer Morgan bounced to shortstop. Willie Bloomquist quickly threw home for one out and Blanco turned the inning-ending double play with a quick throw to first.

The Diamondbacks’ comeback overshadowed two more base-running miscues. In separate innings Roberts and Bloomquist both broke too early in their attempts to steal second. The result was easy pickoffs for Milwaukee starter Randy Wolf.

The Diamondbacks took a 1-0 lead in the fourth on Goldschmidt’s towering home run to center. According to ESPN Hit Tracker, it traveled an estimated 471 feet. The Brewers, however, scored two in the fifth off Arizona starter Daniel Hudson, returning from the disabled list for his first start since April 18.

The right-hander went five innings , allowing six hits and two runs. He struck out three, walked one and threw a wild pitch.

Up next: San Francisco Giants

Update: The Diamondbacks travel to San Francisco, the start of a six-game trip that includes three games in San Diego. Sunday, the Giants secured their second winning road trip of the season with a 3-2 win over the Marlins. They went 4-3 on a seven-game trip, staying in second place in the NL West. The Giants are without 3B Pablo Sandoval, on the 15-day disabled list with a wrist injury. He hasn’ t played since May 2. OF Melky Cabrera, however, has been on a tear. With four more hits Sunday, Cabrera is hitting .369 with four home runs and 25 RBIs. In May, he is hitting .426. C Buster Posey also has driven in 25. The Diamondbacks are 4-2 against San Francisco this season, but have lost two in a row.

The former ASU All-American also played on the 2011 World Cup team that finished second to Japan.

Forward Sydney Leroux, who played for Sereno Soccer Club while going to Phoenix Horizon High before her college career at UCLA, also made the team. The 22-year-old is the youngest on the roster.

There are 11 returning players from the 2008 Olympic team that won a gold medal in Beijing. Midfielders Shannon Boxx and Heather O’Reilly and defender Heather Mitts made their third Olympic team, and U.S. captain Christie Rampone will be playing in a U.S.-record fourth Games.

The U.S. women will be trying for a third consecutive Olympic gold. They also won gold in 1996 and silver in 2000.

The Olympic team plus four alternates will train in Sweden for two weeks with games against Sweden on June 16 and Japan on June 18. The team’s final domestic game before the Olympics is against Canada on June 30 in Sandy, Utah.

In Olympic group play, the U.S. women will play France on July 25, two days before the opening ceremony, Colombia on July 28 and Korea on July 31. The first two games are in Glasgow, Scotland, with the third at Old Trafford, home to Manchester United.

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ASU baseball photos

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With No. 13 Arizona positioned to take sole possession of first place in the Pac-12, No. 16 ASU broke on top 4-0 in the first inning. That took the buzz out of Hi Corbett Field, jammed with 5,677, the largest UA home crowd since May 1980.

Trevor Williams, coming in with a Pac-12 leading 1.86 ERA, made the early lead stand up for a 9-7 win that puts ASU (36-19, 18-11) one game behind the Pac-12 tri-leaders with one game remaining.

UA (37-17, 19-10), No. 5 Oregon and No. 9 UCLA are tied for first and expected to be among 16 NCAA regional hosts announced Sunday. Oregon closes its regular season at No. 23 Oregon State while UCLA hosts USC. No. 14 Stanford and Oregon State are two games out of first.

ASU, ineligible for the postseason due to NCAA sanctions, carried its seasonlong goal of unofficially winning the Pac-12 to the final day by taking out its offensive frustrations from being shut out in a 1-0 loss Friday.

Said ASU coach Tim Esmay: “(Sunday) is our Omaha (College World Series),” with a chance to tie for the Pac-12 title.

“It’s a credit to our team,” Esmay said. “I’m really proud of them. You can see the intensity and wow factor in our young guys. This is what it’s all about. We’re going to have our best locked-in game. The way they responded today, I trust this team. They’ll be ready to go (Sunday).”

The Sun Devils batted around in the first inning against Konner Wade, scoring three runs before the sophomore right-hander from Scottsdale recorded an out.

Following Andrew Aplin’s leadoff double, UA third baseman Seth Mejias-Brean picked up a Deven Marrero grounder in fair territory but made no throw, apparently thinking it was foul. Joey DeMichele doubled in both runners then scored on a hit to center that Abe Ruiz stretched into a double. With one out, Beau Maggi singled Ruiz home.

“(Friday) night was a tough one so (Saturday) we just came out with as much energy as we could,” Aplin said.

“We wanted to try to put it on them early and get some runs up for Trevor. He usually holds it.”

Wade (7-3) needed 31 pitches to get through the first and exited after 58 when the first two ASU batters in the fourth reached on singles.

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D-Backs vs. Brewers series | Box score | Twitter

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If they were to play well and lose, Towers was saying, he could handle it. He wouldn’t like it, but he’d be able to stomach it. But by and large, the bulk of the losses that have filled the season’s first two months haven’t unfolded that way.

Saturday night felt like more of the same. The Diamondbacks committed a key error. They ran into outs on the bases. Their starting pitcher barely got through six innings.

Only this time they had John McDonald to come to the rescue.

It might not be a formula they can count on for the next four months, but no one was complaining after coming away with an 8-5 win over the Milwaukee Brewers at Chase Field.

McDonald’s stunning three-run home run capped a five-run third inning off Brewers right-hander Zack Greinke. It came immediately after the Brewers had scored four times in the top of the third, an inning helped along by a throwing error by third baseman Ryan Roberts.

And so the Diamondbacks head into Sunday’s rubber match with a chance to win a series. If they can pull it off, it will stop a six series losing skid at Chase Field, the longest such streak in franchise history. The Diamondbacks have lost six of seven series at home and are 9-15 overall.

“It’s surprising to me how we’re playing at home,” Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall said shortly after a news conference to announce Miguel Montero’s $60 million contract extension.

“That was our strength last year and it was certainly our strength to start the season. I know we have the talent on our roster and we’re going to get hot here at some point. I just know it.”

The Diamondbacks have had trouble lining things up this season. When their starters throw well, they don’t hit. When they hit, they don’t pitch.

“We keep spinning our wheels,” Towers said. “Hopefully, we find a way out of it. Hopefully the healthier we get that’ll help some. But as a whole we haven’t played real good baseball. It’s not just injuries.”

This wasn’t a textbook win. They started the bottom of the first by scoring two runs on four consecutive singles off Greinke, but then struck out three consecutive times to end the inning. An inning later, Gerardo Parra was picked off first base with runners on the corners and one out.

Later, they stranded a runner on second after a leadoff double and Parra made yet another baserunning error, getting doubled off first on a line drive to shortstop.

But there were positives. Parra tied a career high with four hits. Aaron Hill hit several balls hard.

And then there was McDonald’s shot. After falling behind 0-2, he got a hanging breaking ball from Greinke and hooked it to left field, where it barely cleared the wall for his second home run.

His teammates, who love to poke fun at the undersized and normally light-hitting McDonald, were all smiles as they waited for him in the dugout.

Rewind

Target practice: Right fielder Justin Upton was hit squarely in the back with a fastball from Brewers right-hander Mike McClendon in the third inning.

He didn’t seem pleased. After briefly going down, he quickly got to his feet and stared at McClendon.

On Friday night, three Brewers hitters were plunked by Diamondbacks pitchers, including third baseman Aramis Ramirez, who was scratched from Saturday night’s starting lineup after being drilled with a pitch on his elbow.

Miley’s night: Left-hander Wade Miley needed 108 pitches, and he needed to pitch out of several jams, but the rookie got through six innings, setting things up for the Diamondbacks bullpen to close out the win.

He didn’t get much help from teammates in the second inning. Catcher Konrad Schmidt was charged with a passed ball and third baseman Ryan Roberts committed a throwing error.

Familiar face: Cody Ransom delivered a key hit, only he did it for the Brewers. Three days after being claimed on waivers from the Diamondbacks, Ransom pulled a double past Roberts at third to drive in two runs.

Ransom struck out in his other three at-bats.

View from the press box

Kirk Gibson talked before the game about wanting to establish a set lineup, about needing the players who got them to the playoffs last season to start producing again. Reading between the lines, it sounded as if he’d already pulled the plug on Josh Bell at third base and wanted to give a few guys — maybe Ryan Roberts, Paul Goldschmidt and Aaron Hill — one more chance before going in a different direction. We’ll see much longer of a leash they get.

A growing number of metro Phoenix homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth are lowering their interest rates and monthly payments with the federal government’s second version of its Home Affordable Refinancing Plan.

Facts on programs

While the federal government has yet to release figures on the number of homeowners in the program, mortgage brokers, homeowners and housing counselors are both surprised and encouraged by its early success.

The program allows homeowners with loans held by the federal government’s biggest mortgage entities to refinance to current interest rates without meeting the typical appraisal requirement. These borrowers often had been stymied in past attempts to refinance because their homes were no longer worth enough to cover the value of a new loan.

When the program was announced in October, Cathy Lucero of Glendale was ready to apply. She called a mortgage broker, and he told her to get her credit report and mortgage paperwork in order and call him back in February when more details of the plan were to be released.

“We are seriously underwater with our home,” said Lucero, who works for Maricopa County. “But we have never missed a payment. It seems right to help the homeowners who are trying to do the right thing.”

Her HARP refinance was approved earlier this month. The interest rate on Lucero’s loan will drop to 4.5 percent from 6.5 percent, and she will save almost $350 a month on her payment — about $4,200 a year she can instead put toward other bills.

The goal of the expanded refinancing plan is to help homeowners save money and fend off foreclosures by lowering payments.

A raft of programs with similar goals have found moderate success at best in Arizona since the housing crash: federal funds to speed the process of modifying loans, assist homeowners struggling to make their payments, and help cities and local groups deal with swaths of abandoned houses.

Many of those programs haven’t been able to quickly spend the funds allotted to them, either because the federal government was slow to approve them, the qualifications were too stringent for homeowners, or because banks were reluctant to cooperate.

The latest refinance program, brokers and borrowers say, seems to be the best yet.

“We ran into a few problems when the new HARP was launched in March and were concerned the program was going to be another disappointment,” said Jay Luber, president of Phoenix-based Galaxy Lending. “But now we are seeing homeowners approved every day.”

Home-refinance program

The original HARP program, which began in summer 2009, allowed homeowners to refinance, but only if the new loan needed was no more than 125 percent of the home’s value. This so-called loan-to-value ratio meant the program didn’t help many in metro Phoenix, where a home bought during the boom might have a loan balance twice as big as the home’s current value because home prices have plunged so far from the 2006 peak.

The new refinancing program has no loan-to-value limit.

Luber said he recently helped a homeowner whose loan-to-value ratio is 170 percent refinance under the federal plan.

To be eligible, homeowners must have mortgages backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The two government agencies own more than half of the loans in Arizona.

Freddie Mac has been slow to implement HARP 2, say mortgage brokers. One Phoenix homeowner with a mortgage backed by Freddie was even told by her lender that she was ineligible because only Fannie was participating in the revamped refinancing plan.

But Freddie Mac is now approving HARP 2 loans in metro Phoenix.

Eligible homeowners can have missed only one payment or been late on one payment in the past year and must still bring in enough monthly income to afford their lower payment. Most borrowers are being required to show proof of income to qualify, a provision that wasn’t in early drafts of the plan.

Also, early versions of HARP 2 called for using automated appraisals for all applications, but some metro Phoenix applicants are being required to pay for appraisals because the federal mortgage backers have asked for them.

“On a few HARP 2 applications, the lender has required the borrower to get an appraisal,” said Mike Metz of Sun State Home Loans. “That typically costs the homeowner $400, but so far we have only seen appraisals required for homes in communities on the edge of the Valley like Queen Creek.”

He said the expanded refinancing plan is helping most homeowners who apply.

“About 80 percent of our applications for homeowners trying to refinance with HARP 2 have been approved,” Metz said.

Frustrations remain

As with all the government housing plans, the big lenders continue to frustrate some homeowners.

Rob Myers, a Phoenix public-relations executive, contacted a lender in February about HARP 2. He was told to gather all of his paperwork and call back in mid-March when the program was scheduled to launch.

Myers called back and was told he couldn’t refinance because he had a second mortgage. So, “frustrated beyond belief,” Myers contacted several other lenders who turned him down because they didn’t want to work with the bank servicing his loan or were still using old HARP guideline.

“I had researched the program and believed we would qualify,” Myers said. “We owe $274,000 on our house, and I have been told it’s valued at $210,000. I have never missed a payment or made a late one in the 81/2 years we have been in the home.”

On April 5, after many calls and efforts to refinance with another lender, Myers accepted an offer from Bank of America for a loan with a 5.1 percent interest rate. His current rate is 6 percent.

“It looks like we will be saving about $270 a month, he said. “That’s not great, but at least it’s something.”

Not all lenders are offering the same deals. Some homeowners are working with mortgage brokers to shop around for lower interest rates. Under the federal program, borrowers who qualify can seek a new loan from any participating lender, not just the one that currently holds their loan.

Other programs

Since 2008, Arizona has been allotted more than half a billion dollars in federal funds to help homeowners and slow foreclosures.

But municipalities, the Arizona Housing Department and housing non-profits have found it difficult to actually spend the money because of tough federal guidelines; too-stringent qualifications for many homeowners; and the requirement in most of the plans that lenders cooperate. Less than half of the state’s federal housing funds have been used to help homeowners, and deadlines are looming for some of the money to be spent.

The Neighborhood Stabilization Program was the first federal program to help states fight foreclosures. Much of the money in Arizona was originally going to be used to help homeowners buy foreclosure homes and fix them up. But when the federal money became available in mid-2009, investors had begun buying inexpensive foreclosure homes and turning them into rentals, outbidding many potential homeowners who had sought NSP help.

Regular buyers trying to use NSP funds had trouble competing with the investors.

“We had to jump through a lot of hoops to buy this home, but Phoenix has a great NSP program,” said Jim Hansen. He and his wife, Rosalva, are buying a three-bedroom former foreclosure home in west Phoenix for less than $78,000. The home originally cost $92,000, but NSP provided $15,000 for the couple’s down payment and funded a renovation of the house that includes a new air-conditioner and appliances.

The couple became the 300th homebuyer for Phoenix’s NSP program, which started three years ago. Housing advocates say the program had a slow start but is helping first-time buyers like the Hansens and neighborhoods with too many empty foreclosure homes.

Recipients of the federal funds in Arizona, including the cities of Avondale, Mesa and Phoenix, tried to revamp their plans and spend the money in other ways to help neighborhoods, including renovating run-down apartments for low-income residents. But all plans had to be approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and city officials said that became an arduous process.

“Municipalities tried to customize their programs, but it was slow,” said Patricia Garcia Duarte, CEO of the housing non-profit Neighborhood Housing Services of Phoenix. “The many variations on the program created confusion. But overall, the funds weren’t available to do what the program really intended to do.”

The federal Home Affordable Modification Program was announced by President Barack Obama during a February 2009 speech in Mesa. Many metro Phoenix residents were hopeful they would be able to lower their payments and keep their homes through the program called HAMP. The goal was to push lenders to simply alter the terms of mortgages — reducing payments, changing interest rates or forgiving principal.

But lenders took several months to implement the program, and homeowners trying to hold on waited months before receiving responses from their lenders. Paperwork was lost. Homeowners were granted “trial modifications,” then foreclosed on. And most of those trials were not made permanent.

Few of the loan modifications included principal reductions, yet lenders have made the program costly for the federal government.

The federal government responded to the problems with HAMP by creating the Hardest Hit Housing fund with unused money from the federal banking bailout in early 2010. Arizona was one of five states to receive the funding.

The Arizona Housing Department spent months working on a plan that would help struggling homeowners who had not been helped by a loan modification. The main component of the state’s plan called for enticing lenders to reduce principal by offering matching funds.

A homeowner could see his outstanding loan balance cut by $100,000, with $50,000 from the housing agency and the other $50,000 forgiven by the lender.

Housing advocates and homeowners were optimistic. The applications for the program poured in. But the approval process was tough, and few lenders seemed willing to cooperate — housing officials could offer the money as an enticement but couldn’t force banks to go along. So far, only a handful of homeowners have had principal forgiven.

“The Treasury Department called the Hardest Hit program an innovation fund,” said Mike Trailor, director of the state’s Housing Department. “But what I have found is you can’t innovate the lending industry when it won’t work with you.”

He said the state agency has had better luck with its unemployment/underemployment program that helps homeowners pay their mortgages for up to two years. The state has until 2017 to use the remaining funds, more than $200 million.

Now, the Housing Department is looking at ways it can expand on the HARP 2 program and use its Hardest Hit money to help arrange refinancing for people who don’t have loans owned by Fannie or Freddie.

Arizona isn’t alone in having problems spending these federal funds.

Nationally, a report from the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP, released a report showing that less than 5 percent of the Hardest Hit funds have been spent.

What’s next

Metro Phoenix’s home prices have begun to climb again, and foreclosures are half of what they were two years ago.

Now, it might be too late to help many homeowners. Experts think foreclosures are on the decline because most homeowners who were going to lose their houses already have, and rising prices indicate a recovering market.

Much of the federal funds set aside to slow foreclosures and help the housing market recover faster could go unspent.

“I have told Congress HARP 2 would have helped a lot more people and the housing market two years ago,” said Anthony Sanders, a professor of real-estate finance with George Mason University. He was previously with Arizona State University.

“The federal housing programs were poorly designed and didn’t help the people who needed it,” he said. “We will still have to see if it’s not too late for HARP 2.”

It’s up to the courts to decide whether to reunite children with parents or place them with relatives or an adoptive family, and experts agree it should happen as quickly as possible. The more time passes, the more likely the children will be traumatized by their experience with the child-welfare system.

A recent increase in the number of foster children, with no corresponding rise in staff, has put mounting pressure on juvenile courts and made it more difficult to quickly resolve these cases. In Maricopa County, juvenile “dependency” cases, in which judges determine when or whether a child can return home, have increased by nearly 40 percent during the past three years.

The flood of cases has lengthened the time children spend in foster care, led to waiting lists for court-ordered services aimed at helping families, and added to caseloads for attorneys representing the state, parents and children. Since 2008, the average time a child spends in the state’s foster-care system has grown by more than two months, to 17.2 months. That’s below the national average of more than two years.

Higher caseloads mean some parents wait longer to get their children back and foster families face delays in adopting kids. Attorneys also don’t have as much time to spend on each case, which can lead to hasty decisions or further delays.

For the most vulnerable people touched by the system, babies and toddlers, these delays can have lifelong impacts on growth and development. Foster-care limbo can interrupt critical bonding between parent and child or jeopardize a child’s sense of stability if the solution is placement with a new family.

“It’s important that a child be able to form a good, healthy, stable attachment with the person they’re with every day,” said Julie Larrieu, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Tulane University School of Medicine. “They need to have a permanent place where they can grow and develop.”

It’s something Bryan Kelly hasn’t had during 11 years in Arizona’s child-welfare system. Kelly, who has lived with dozens of families during that time, said his long, bumpy ride through foster care has made it difficult for him to develop lasting relationships.

“The system has thrown me around so much it has developed a pattern in my mind,” said Kelly, 18. “There’s a 50-50 chance I might not be there that long. So why get attached?”

The judicial system has ultimate authority when Child Protective Services removes children from their homes. Though research and public-policy shifts acknowledge the danger of letting kids languish in foster care, the system also is built on the premise that families should be reunited if it’s safe to do so. Resolving cases too quickly can jeopardize that goal.

“Every kid in the system has to have a chance to go back to their biological family,” said Bill Owsley, chief of the dependency division of the Maricopa County Office of the Legal Advocate, which represents foster children. “I think everyone understands, to some degree, that’s where kids belong. We need to do everything possible to try to make that happen.”

How state got here

Forever ending a parent’s legal right to raise a child isn’t supposed to be easy. Before taking that drastic step, the state is required to show that it has made reasonable efforts to keep families together. That includes facilitating regular visits between parents and children and offering drug treatment, therapy and other services to address the problems that landed the children in foster care.

At the same time, authorities must meet deadlines under state and federal law intended to move children out of foster care as soon as possible.

Once the state removes a child from his or her parents because of suspected abuse or neglect, a hearing must be held within seven days to determine whether authorities took the proper action. Other deadlines dictate when additional hearings should be held and how long a child can remain in foster care before the state severs a parent’s legal rights. A child 2 years old or younger can be free for adoption six months after coming into care, and parents can lose their older children within 15 months.

CPS has placed a growing number of children in foster care over the past several years, with nearly 900 children — 15 a day — becoming wards of the state during February and March, according to data from the state Department of Economic Security, which oversees CPS.

As a result, dependency petitions also have increased. Judges are ordering more-frequent hearings for cases involving babies and small children — who make up about 50 percent of all foster kids — to get updates on whether families are receiving needed services and how parents and children are responding.

The crush of cases together with the expedited timelines have collided in juvenile courts across the state, but particularly in Maricopa County, where more than half of all removals occur.

On a recent morning, Maricopa County Juvenile Court Judge Aimee Anderson had 23 cases on her calendar, including five involving children the state removed from their parents days earlier. None of the parents showed up for the hearings.

Another case involved two boys who had been in foster care for nearly a year. The attorneys had not seen results of a father’s psychological evaluation, ordered two months earlier. The mother was “a little apprehensive about how long the case is lasting,” her attorney said.

“It’s going to last a lot longer,” Anderson replied, setting the next hearing for July.

The judge scolded CPS for handing her an update on two boys and their parents just minutes earlier. State rules require CPS to submit such reports five working days before the hearing.

But progress also is made in the courtroom.

Anderson reunited mothers with their babies and praised them for doing what CPS and the courts had asked them to do.

“Matthew is no longer at risk of abuse or neglect,” Anderson said, reading the boiler-plate legalese that comes at the end of every successful case. “Thank you. Congratulations. And remember, he’s got to be Number 1.”

Then the judge stepped down from the bench and went off script.

“I want to see this beautiful baby!” she said to the flirty 5-month-old. “Oh my goodness. You’re going to be a lady-killer!”

Impact on kids

Today in Maricopa County, more children are being adopted than returning to their parents. Three years ago, the opposite was true. Regardless of the outcome, attorneys and child advocates say children too often don’t get a say in their own futures. Even older children may not be informed about decisions that affect them until after they’ve been made.

Kelly said he has never met an attorney assigned by the court to represent him since he entered the system at age 7.

“I have never been involved in any court decision when it comes to placement or (services) or anything of that nature,” he said.

Had he been asked, he would have told the judge in Minnesota 11 years ago that he wanted to stay with his grandmother, not return to the Valley to live with his mother. A day after authorities brought him back to live with his mom, they removed him because of neglect stemming from her drug abuse, he said.

So began his years in foster care, without a stable home.

Research is conclusive that babies and small children need one consistent caregiver for healthy growth and development. That’s part of what’s behind a new Maricopa County effort to move those kids through the foster-care system more quickly.

But kids returned to their families too soon may end up back in the foster-care system if the underlying problems aren’t resolved.

Foster parent Kris Jacober said goodbye to a 1-year-old foster child last year when CPS returned the girl to her mother. Last month, CPS brought her back to Jacober. The girl, now 3, came with her two little sisters.

Impact on parents

Parents who have lost custody of their children face a list of requirements from the state before they can get their children back. It sometimes includes attending supervised visits with their kids, taking random drug tests and participating in other programs such as therapy.

Judges can order all of the services they want, but that doesn’t mean parents will get them. Ballooning caseloads have made it difficult for service providers to keep up.

During a trial earlier this month, for example, Anderson found that a young mother of three, who’d already had one child removed and adopted, was not getting the counseling and other services the judge had ordered. The mom had attended regular visits with her children, but received no help to improve her relationship with the boys and demonstrate that she could care for them.

“It’s clear to me that the mother needs the interventions that the department promised in February,” Anderson said. The judge kept the children, ages 3 and 4, with their foster parents, but refused the state’s request to start proceedings to sever the mother’s parental rights.

“You must follow through with what CPS puts in place,” Anderson told her after giving her more time to show she could be a good mother to her children.

Parents generally have easy access to drug and alcohol tests. But getting drug or alcohol treatment is sometimes the problem — it’s often delayed or cut short.

“The services are there, it’s just a wait,” said Chris Phillis, director of the Maricopa County Office of the Public Advocate, which represents parents in CPS cases.

“What keeps parents from using is the fact that they’re getting to see their child each and every day,” she said. “If you know you’re not going to see your baby for a week, what’s going to keep you grounded?”

For the past year, parents have faced long waiting lists for aides who supervise visits. However, DES recently resolved a contract dispute with parent-aide services, which should improve the wait times.

“There are hundreds of families on waiting lists for parent-aide services, so they’re not getting any help with the issues that brought them into care in the first place,” said Suzanne Schunk, director of family-support services for Southwest Human Development, which has a state contract to provide parent-aide services. “So how can we shorten timelines for these families?” she said. “It’s impossible because parents aren’t getting the services.”

Impact on attorneys

Overbooked attorneys, responsible for more than 130 cases each, may not have time to meet their child clients, leaving that job to social workers. Sometimes they meet for the first time as they enter the courtroom.

“We hear consistently that attorneys aren’t meeting with the children they represent, that foster parents don’t even know who their attorneys are,” said Caroline Lautt-Owens, director of the dependent children’s services division of the Arizona Office of the Courts.

“If adults are not getting adequate representation, they can ask for another attorney,” Lautt-Owens said. “Children can’t.”

Attorneys are often scheduled to appear in three or four courtrooms at once, and staffers juggle calendars to hear cases when everyone can be there. That can leave CPS caseworkers and families waiting for hours in court hallways.

“There are lots of cases that don’t get the attention that they need and deserve because the caseloads are so high,” Owsley said. “None of us can spend as much time as we need to spend on these cases.”

CPS reports, evaluations from psychologists and drug-test results are sometimes late or non-existent, delaying cases for weeks or months.

While the number of kids in the system has grown, staffing in the Child and Family Protection Division of the Attorney General’s Office has not. The division’s 84 lawyers handle more than 100 cases apiece. The American Bar Association standard is between 40 and 60 cases.

Division chief counsel Nicole Davis said she relieves trial attorneys of other duties, such as appeals and policy advice to CPS, because of the intense demands of the cases. She said her attorneys still carry too many cases.

“I cannot represent to you that it is not a stress on the system or that my lawyers aren’t overworked, because they are,” Davis said, adding that the division has plans to hire more attorneys.

Private attorneys under contract with counties to represent parents are spread thin, too. Maricopa County has signed contracts with additional attorneys this year to ease the workload.

Solutions

When Edd Ballinger became the county’s presiding juvenile-court judge in 2010, the “huge tsunami” of Arizona foster children alarmed him.

Ballinger soon learned that the ripples would flow into the next generation if something wasn’t done to help children and their families better weather the storm.

Ballinger is spearheading a broad effort in Maricopa County, called Cradle to Crayons, to reshape how the system handles cases for babies and young children, with specialized court calendars for judges, including Anderson. The judges completed special training in early-childhood development and agreed to remain on the bench beyond the typical two-year rotation.

The reforms, including a new child-welfare center for visitation and therapy, are intended to determine more quickly whether the state can reunite families, give parents more help to regain custody if they’re able and help foster children ultimately grow into better parents. Plans include a visitation, counseling and resource center near the Durango Juvenile Court Center.

Another response to the overflowing child-welfare system includes efforts to ensure that children have better legal representation and that the needs of families are addressed.

The state Supreme Court approved new rules, effective Jan. 1, for attorneys who represent children. They require mandatory training for attorneys, in-person meetings and “meaningful communication” with child clients before hearings.

“We’re in the process of revolutionizing how young ones are treated,” Ballinger said. “We want to force a system that makes people pay more attention to these kids.”

By the numbers

4,762 Maricopa County families lost legal custody of their children to the state this fiscal year.

An estimated 38 percent of Maricopa County foster children will be adopted during fiscal 2012, compared with 24 percent in fiscal 2009.

12,649 Arizona children were in foster care March 31.

About 16 percent of foster kids went home less than 30 days after they were removed, compared with almost 30 percent in 2008.

Foster children remain in care an average of 17.2 months.

57 percent of Maricopa County children in state custody are younger than 5 years old.

Sources: Department of Economic Security and Maricopa County Superior Court