We celebrate a post-pandemic return to normalcy this season by once again naming an All-Area team for each one of our nine spring sports to go along with the introduction of our players of the year in each of those sports.

We thank you for your continued readership as we found other ways to bring you news of the sports world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, we couldn't be happier than to resume highlighting our distinguished local high school athletes, who for the first time in more than a year were able to play a full schedule and to compete for state championships.

We will begin publishing our Spring All-Area teams Saturday. The teams and players of the year, selected from the 17 high schools we cover regularly, were chosen by our dedicated sports staff — Dave Davis, Mike DiMauro, Vickie Fulkerson, Ned Griffen and Gavin Keefe. Each player of the year was photographed by The Day's director of photography, Sean D. Elliot, and will be featured in a video produced by director of multimedia Peter Huoppi.

The publication schedule is as follows: Saturday, boys' tennis; Sunday, girls' tennis; Monday, boys' lacrosse; Tuesday, girls' lacrosse; Wednesday, golf; Thursday, girls' track & field; Friday, July 9, boys' track & field; Saturday, July 10, softball; Sunday, July 11, baseball.

We bring you all-conference and all-state players and All-Americans. We hope you enjoy their stories.

Chuck Banning, Sports Editor