It has been the "off-season" so it has been a little quiet in the high school realm with the exception of the basketball all-star games.
That's all about to change.
Spring has sprung and even the weather, occasionally, feels that way. This coming Wednesday will bring us the first games of the final sports season of the school calendar year and also the busiest in terms of number of athletics offered.
Baseball, softball, track,tennis, golf, lacrosse, even volleyball, sailing and crew are offered throughout the schools in the area. Check out the Norwich Bulletin or Bulletin on-line for a preview of all the high school sports beginning Monday.
To wrap up the winter season, the Bulletin is also publishing a beautiful 16-page All-Area section this week. The choices for players of the year and coaches of the year will be revealed in each sport as chosen by local coaches and members of the Bulletin Sports staff. I hope you like it and I hope you're ready for spring.

I know not everyone is happy to see Eastern Connecticut grow in terms of population. But one thing that expansion has allowed for, in athletics any way, is the ability for schools to broaden their horizons.
We're seeing that happen to many schools in the Eastern Connecticut Conference as new athletic offerings have been popping up as of late.
After years of staying the course in Waterford, Waterford High School has now started to add some new programs.
Volleyball began this past fall as a JV program and will become varsity this fall. Gymnastics came on line as a cooperative program with Fitch and, this spring, lacrosse will be offered for the first time for both boys and girls. It will begin on the JV level but is also planned to be a varsity sport come next spring.
The ECC, as a whole, has decided that fencing is ready to become a full fledged sport as it has met the minimum requirement, four schools or more now offer it as a varsity sport. The inaugural league season begins this winter.
There are some things about growth that people may not find attractive, this is one of the more positive things that can emerge from it. More young people given more opportunities to find their niche.

Kerrianne Dugan did what she does best Monday night.
Dugan was flying around the floor, diving for loose balls and mixing it up inside and this was just an all-star game in North Branford.
It didn't mean anything, the outcome was not all that important but that's how Kerrianne Dugan plays basketball and she might continue playing basketball beyond high school.
Dugan, a senior at Waterford High School, has told me that she has been contacted by a couple of Division I schools although she was reluctant to identify them. But if that is the case, she is well deserving.
Waterford coach Rob Von Achen has always said that Dugan is the "toughest" player he has ever coached and she always brings everything to the court.
Dugan scored 13 points in the Connecticut High School Coaches Association All-Star Festival Monday night. Her teammate, Jodie Plikus, was there too and also stayed true to her trademark as she scored the game winning 3-pointer at the buzzer.
It's the boys turn tonight to represent their school on the basketball court for a final time as the CHSCA Boys All-Star Festival gets underway at 6:15 p.m. at Maloney High School in Meriden.

It was one of those games that if you were a Waterford High fan, you had to be concerned from the opening tip.
Unlike the girls Class L state championship game the week before where even Coach Rob Von Achen thought his was the better team that was beaten by a Joel Barlow team that played a better game, the boys Class M state championship was pretty obvious.
The Lancers, as expected, truly had no answer for the dynamic inside duo of 6-foot-9-inch center John Galvin and 6-4 Thomas Montelli who combined to grab 24 of the Weston Trojans 46 rebounds.
Weston coach Billy Lovett praised Galvin somewhat afterward as he said the senior center was the one who got all the press but one couldn't forget the contributions of Montelli and the Trojans' three guards.
True, but it was Galvin and Montelli who also got all the offensive putbacks when the guards misfired and that happened often, especially in the first half.
While I would hesitate to give the guards tons of credit offensively for Weston's win on Sunday, I would have to agree their defensive effort was outstanding. They shut down Waterford's best player, Anthony Malhoit. And when Trevor Hendry got a little hot with so much attention being paid to Malhoit, they shifted into a triangle and two and Mark Shaw made life difficult on Hendry and Waterford as a whole.
While no one wants to go home in second place from a state championship, Waterford has to know that Weston was just a little too good this season and, instead, be more than happy that they were the Cinderellas at the dance.

Just wondering, can you believe the high school baseball season starts in two weeks?
Looking outside, neither can I.
Just another day of anticipation for the Waterford High School Lancers boys basketball team as the Class M state championship game with Weston was postponed today and moved to Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. at Central Connecticut State University.
The Lancers know about 6-foot-9-inch John Galvin, they know about 6-4 Thomas Montelli and everyone is telling them that they are the underdog. The Trojans have been winning big, with the exception of their close encounter with Sacred Heart in the semifinals, the Lancers have been just getting by. But the Lancers have found a way to win, using the style of their opponents against them at times, and that may be necessary again tomorrow.
Waterford coach Mark Capasso is probably going to try and double down on Galvin and hope that Montelli along the baseline and the three guards outside don't kill 'em. As Stonington coach Mike Reyes said about Weston, "pick your poison".
Reyes did add one thing, however, had it not been for a tough stretch at the end of the first half and one at the beginning of the second, his Bears might have given Weston a much closer game than the 80-42 final.
See you at Central on Sunday.

It was the agony of defeat and the thrill of victory Tuesday night in New Haven.
The Bolton-Coventry-Lyman boys hockey team did not have a successful experience at Yale University as they lost a Division III semifinal to New Milford 8-2 but just about five minutes down the road, Waterford's boys basketball team was jumping for joy as they beat Joel Barlow High School in a Class M basketball semifinal that featured just about as much scoring as the hockey game, Waterford winning 34-33.
Even though you do try to remain somewhat neutral as a sportswriter, you can get caught up in the emotion that is surrounding a team like Waterford right now. Face it, the Lancers are on a Cinderella run, no one, not even themselves, expected to be here but the stars were aligned just right and Lady Luck has shown her light on them a bit as well as all the hard work they've put in. Tuesday's game may have been a yawner on the court but it had to be one of the fastest games of the year as it ended in just over an hour.
The next task for Waterford- a state title game Saturday morning at CCSU in New Britain.
Didn't we just write that some place?
The B-C-L boys didn't have as happy a finish but the Whalers might get the consolation prize- experience.
B-C-L didn't have a senior on the team but still made it to the final four in Division III hockey, one can only hope that they make it back again next season.
New Milford was just too darn good in this one, the Division II school by enrollment numbers, scored three times in the first period and, in hockey, that's more than hard to overcome.
Three more goals in the second period by the Green Wave closed the books on the Whalers season but for this team there is always next year.

Its been a Waterford kind of weekend so far.
The boys basketball team did the town proud by making it to the Class M semifinals Friday night and now the girls basketball team goes for a Class L state championship today- pretty impressive.
The Lancers boys are not one of the teams I would have picked to go this far but several things have happened in their favor. Having played a tough Class L and LL schedule all season long, Class M teams may not seem to be as tough as they may be. The Lancers are used to playing against guards like R.J.Evans and Michael Jensen, so John Carlson of Old Saybrook was nothing new to them.
The Lancers were something different to the Rams, however, who play a primarily small school schedule. Carlson said he hadn't played against athletes like Anthony Malhoit who had a great vertical leap and long arms which disrupts passing lanes.
The Rams hung tough, especially with their third quarter comeback, but you had to like Waterford pulling it out in the end courtesy of a 3-pointer by Pat Epps.
Their reward, a semifinal game against a team called Joel Barlow. Now does that sound familiar or what!
See you at the championship game this morning.