Postwinter Blahs

I haven't posted in two weeks. Apart from Shelby's basketball teams being eliminated in 24 hours, there hasn't been a lot to talk about.

Yep, we're in the postwinter blahs.

In West Michigan, the "post" feels superfluous this year, as the weather has stubbornly refused to cooperate with the fact that it's supposed to be spring. There's still snow on the ground, and highs are supposed to dip back into the high 30s next week, when games are supposed to be played.

Of course, games should have been being played for the last week and that hasn't stopped Mother Nature. Our first area game was slated to be Shelby/Pentwater girls soccer on Mar. 21, but that was snowed out. The Shelby game this last Tuesday was knocked out too and so were all the Whitehall, Montague and Reeths-Puffer baseball that should have happened this week. It's a stark contrast, I'm told, to the weather we had here last year, which figures since I wasn't here to enjoy it.

Hart and Pentwater are supposed to play baseball, softball and soccer next Tuesday, but I assume those games won't happen either. I know I would be in no mood to play baseball if I were a high-school kid on a day where the high started with a 3.

The good news for our readers is that the cupboard hasn't been bare. I've been able to have a couple of solid feature story topics, between the superhuman Zeerip family at Hesperia (three state-champion wrestlers and a girls' basketball star, who are also three valedictorians and one in the making), Shelby's Emily Tjapkes, now a volleyball player at UM-Dearborn, and a profile of former Whitehaller Chip Will, now the coach of the defending NJCAA volleyball champions at Grand Rapids Community College. And this week in the White Lake Beacon, we blow out spring preview coverage with baseball, softball and boys golf. Next week, I'm aiming to preview track, girls soccer and girls tennis.

It's not the same, though, as recapping actual games, which I hope to start doing next week. All three Beacon-area teams are off for spring break, though, so we'll be dry at least until Apr. 9, a frustrating delay. It's exhausting working the long hours and making the drives to shoot games, but I strangely enjoy it much more than your more or less generic 40-hour work week where I'm home every night. I'm clearly insane.

A few random notes:

- I'm working on the OHJ free-throw champion feature we generally do towards the end of basketball season, though it wasn't done last year due to Shelby's state semifinal run and the fact that the OHJ was shorthanded that March. I'm only waiting on one coach's free-throw stats and we'll hopefully have that in next week's issue.

- Shelby's Sydney Czurak was named Class C all-state a couple of weeks ago in girls basketball, the only player from the entire region to receive the honor (everyone else came from the greater Detroit area or from the north). Pretty wild, and deserved as she was the prime reason the Lady Tigers managed to get as far as they did.

- Walkerville won't field a varsity softball team this year and Pentwater will, reversing last year's circumstances. I can't imagine attending a Class D school where there are so few students you're in danger of not having a varsity team in a given year. Pentwater A.D. Dan Nugent told me this week that every student in the school is playing at least one sport this year, which is really an impressive feat, actually. Of course, he also mentioned that it creates a scheduling nightmare for make-up dates, specifically for his girls soccer team, which only has 13 members, several of whom also run track or play softball - which means any make-up date for that sport has to be an open date for the other two as well. Oy.

- The OHJ Spring Sports Scene preview section will run in next Thursday's issue, the first one written entirely by me. Shred it accordingly. Meanwhile, the Beacon Spring Sports Salute, where we run team photos of all area teams, won't be for a couple of weeks yet because Whitehall's spring photos aren't until the week after next.