Yeah, yeah, I know. The 2015-16 high school sports season is over.
And this Monday usually marks the start of a three-month stretch when my weekly column normally goes dark.
But we can’t quite put the prep season to bed just yet.
For starters, this week marks the start of senior all-star events. On Wednesday, the Southwest Washington Senior Baseball All-Star Series will be played at Propstra Stadium (actually the event is mostly a Clark County event; there is a Stevenson player on the rosters). The two eight-inning games will start at 4 p.m. Players will compete for spots in the All-State Senior Series to be played on June 10-12 in Yakima.
If you’d like to see what players make up the American League and National League team, go to our high schools blog for the rosters.
So it’s a last chance to see your favorite local high school baseball seniors in the uniform of their high school teams. And it looks like it will be a great day to be outside.
All-Region
Another item to take care of before we can close out the 2015-16 sports year is the selection of our All-Region athletes in nine sports — baseball, softball, boys soccer, boys and girls track and field, boys and girls tennis and boys and girls golf.
In fact, The Columbian is again asking for fans help in selection of the All-Region soccer, baseball and softball teams.
Starting Monday, fans can cast their votes on the players in boys soccer. It’s an online vote, so you have go to columbian.com to participate. The boys soccer vote will remain open until Thursday. On Friday, we’ll open the baseball vote for four days, then we’ll conclude with the softball vote next week.
The results from these fans vote will be combined with selections made by area coaches and The Columbian staff’s own picks to make the final All-Region team.
To earn a spot on the ballots, athletes had to be selected to their all-league first team.
So go vote today.
All-league
Over the past month, we’ve been posting area all-league teams on our high school sports blog as we have received them. By late last week, we received them all. That means we can run them in print this week.
The spring all-league teams for the 4A Greater St. Helens League, 3A GSHL, 2A GSHL and 1A Trico League will appear in Wednesday’s edition of The Columbian.
So be sure to check the teams online to make sure we have correct spelling of names, because it’s hard to change once it goes into print.
Because of space concerns, we are running only the first and second-team selections. If you want to see those who received honorable mention, you’ll have to go to our blog.
Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor for The Columbian. He can be reached 360-735-4538, tim.martinez@columbian.com or follow his Twitter handle @360TMart.
