Earlier this week, we celebrated our Athletes of the Year from 26 sports at a banquet held in a beautiful venue at Lake of Isles. Now, we're ready to introduce our Spring All-Area Teams along with the 10 Players of the Year from this past season. We chose a Girls' Golfer of the Year for the very first time.

The Athletes of the Year and the accompanying All-Area Teams, all from our coverage area, are chosen by our sports staff: Dave Davis, Mike DiMauro, Vickie Fulkerson, Ned Griffen and Gavin Keefe. Our All-Area coverage will begin with Friday's paper and continue through July 10. There are so many stories that we are proud to tell from these athletes that we have gotten to know throughout their careers.

The schedule of publication for our teams is as follows: Friday, girls' golf; Saturday, boys' golf; Sunday, girls' lacrosse; Monday, boys' lacrosse; Tuesday, girls' track & field; Wednesday, boys' track & field; Thursday, girls' tennis; Friday, July 8, boys' tennis; Saturday, July 9, softball; and Sunday, July 10, baseball.

Our successful spring season saw two girls' tennis teams which won state championships, Stonington in Class M and Old Lyme in Class S, along with the Stonington boys' track team, which captured the Class M title.

We know there will be more triumphant stories to bring you in the fall.

Have a great summer and we'll see you then.

Chuck Banning,

Sports Editor