Martinez: Springing ahead after busy conclusion to winter sports

Phew!

The last three weeks of the winter sports season were busy.

The Columbian/360 Preps staff was out in earnest each of the past three weeks covering pivotal postseason events around the state.

On Feb. 21-22, we covered state championship events in wrestling, swimming and gymnastics as well as bi-district and district basketball playoffs.

On Feb. 28-March 1, we sent four staffers to cover state opening round basketball games in Longview, Tacoma, Issaquah, Bellevue, Mount Vernon, Yakima and Richland.

And then last week, Micah Rice, Will Denner and Meg Wochnick were in Yakima and Tacoma covering state tournament basketball games.

Normally, this week would be a week of calm before the start of the spring sports season. In a typical season, the first actual games of spring might not be held until Friday or Saturday after the conclusion of the state basketball tournaments.

But last year, the WIAA representative assembly passed an amendment lowering the minimum number of required practices before competition in a season can begin for most sports.

And several area spring sports teams are taking advantage of that change to begin their seasons early this year.

On Tuesday, there were a handful of regular-season baseball, soccer and soccer games on the schedule, including a 2A Greater St. Helens League boys soccer match between Columbia River and R.A. Long.

And more games on the schedule for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Of course in sports like baseball, softball and tennis, the weather could play a factor into if those game actually get played.

Regardless, there is very little break this year between winter and spring.

Lookback at state hoops

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a change that I proposed regarding the basketball state tournament format.

Well, last week we had two more state champions crowned that lost games in the opening round of the tournament — A.C. Davis girls at 4A and Rainier Beach boys at 3A.

Now whether or not you’re OK with giving certain teams do-overs in the state playoffs — for the record, I’m not — a bigger question remains.

What other WIAA sports allows a team to lose a state playoff game and still win a state title?

The answer to that question is none.

So maybe it’s time to think about realigning basketball with the other sports.

The other problem with the format is it can take boys and girls teams from the same school and have them playing opening round games more than 200 miles apart. That’s what happened to teams from Camas, Columbia River, Ridgefield and Seton Catholic.

That’s not particularly fan-friendly.

Saluting winter athletes

Before we completely turn the page from the winter sports season, we have a couple notable loose ends to tie up.

First, The Columbian will print winter all-league teams in its print edition later this week — 4A Greater St. Helens League on Thursday, 3A GSHL on Friday and 2A GSHL and 1A Trico League on Saturday.

Next week, we begin to unveil our winter sports All-Region athletes of the year and All-Region teams.