The pads are cracking on the practice fields. Rosters are being set. Schedules being updated.
This week is the calm before the storm. Prep season is just around the corner. I know it will be upon us before we realize. June and July were incredibly busy with the Lefties being in the playoff hunt until the final week of the season and the Wilder American Legion teams all playing extensive schedules.
The first week of prep football begins the night of Sept. 6. We’re working on previews all this week, beginning with the Quilcene Rangers today and the other eight-man B Classification schools later this week.
Will a more experienced Neah Bay team challenge for the state championship again? How will Port Angeles respond to graduating a ton of seniors after last year’s team, the best Roughriders team in at least 15 years. How will Sequim respond to a new head coach? This upcoming season is full of intrigue.
As in the past couple of years, readers can begin to look for game stories on the Friday night games on Saturday afternoons after the games at www. peninsuladailynews.com. The website will be updated all day beginning at noon Saturdays and into the early evenings as game stories come in.
On Sunday, you can usually find the Saturday games, mostly eight-man games, online by mid-afternoon. You will find all of the Friday night and Saturday games in our Monday e-edition, available to all subscribers.
Last year, we heard from a few people who either prefer not to use the Internet or don’t have Internet access about the lack of game stories in print. This has definitely been an issue since we dropped our Sunday edition and went to an e-edition on Mondays. Online coverage is definitely the wave of the future, but there are some readers out there who still like the feeling of newsprint and ink on their fingers.
For those people and the rest of our readers, we’re going to try something a little different this year.
Each Tuesday, we’re going to print a roundup with highlights and photos from each weekend’s games for those people who missed all the game stories online. It’s a way to make sure all of our readers are getting as much game information as possible. The rest of the week will feature the other preps — girls soccer, cross country and more — as well as the weekday Peninsula College soccer games. Beginning in September, the sports section will be mostly all local, all the time, with some Seattle Times, New York Times and The Athletic coverage of Seattle and national sports.
Speaking of Seattle, we will no longer have Seattle Seahawks game stories in the Monday e-edition. Look online on Sunday night or Monday morning at www.peninsuladailynews.com for The Athletic, Seattle Times and McClatchy News Service coverage of the Seahawks, and then look in print on Tuesday for game analysis.
And remember, our popular Athlete of the Week feature sponsored by Swain’s General Store returns on Sept. 10.
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Sports Editor Pierre LaBossiere can be contacted at pierre.labossiere@ peninsuladailynews.com.
