Our sports staff had a busy fall season, one which didn't end until Saturday, Dec. 11 — less than a week ago — with the state football championships and the boys' cross country national championship meet at Balboa Park in San Diego.

We had nine local teams reach the state tournament semifinals last month and four play for state titles, with the Lyman Memorial volleyball team taking its third straight Class S state championship and the Stonington boys' soccer team wrapping up its second Class M title in a row.

We covered all-conference, all-state, All-New England and All-America athletes.

Now, it's our honor to unveil our All-Area teams for the eight fall sports. The teams will begin running in Friday's edition of The Day. For each sport we have named a player of the year and chosen an all-star team from our coverage area. The selections were made by our sports staff: Dave Davis, Mike DiMauro, Vickie Fulkerson, Ned Griffen and Gavin Keefe.

The players of the year each came to the paper for a portrait session with director of photography Sean D. Elliot and a video segment with director of multimedia Peter Huoppi.

The schedule of publication for the teams is as follows: Friday, volleyball; Saturday, swimming and diving; Sunday, boys' cross country; Monday, girls' cross country; Wednesday, Dec. 22, field hockey; Thursday, Dec. 23, girls' soccer; Friday, Dec. 24, boys' soccer; and Saturday, Dec. 25, football. We will take a break on Tuesday, Dec. 21, for coverage of The Day Holiday Classic boys' basketball tournament at Mohegan Sun Arena.

Thank you for taking the journey through the fall season with us. As we get started on our winter sports, we hope you have a very happy holiday season.

Chuck Banning, Sports Editor