Spring Sports Clock Starts Ticking Wednesday

Perhaps, as the book-title suggests, time does begin on Opening Day, which means for high school athletes the clock will start ticking Wednesday.

The players have it easy. All they have to do is play. Fans of high school sports have to weigh the options, the schedule and the weather and pick and choose a team, sport or even an individual athlete to watch. This isn’t easy. The weather forecasters are calling for a partly cloudy day in the low '50s. Not ideal but could be much worse.

Perhaps your Opening Day should start in Windsor, where the girls track team opens defense of its Class L championship against East Catholic-Manchester (all times are 3:45 p.m. unless noted). The Warriors backed that with a win in the indoor championships during the winter and would seem favorites to win again.

They lost Tyshay Carmichael to graduation but have more than enough talent in the running events to compensate. Brianna Allen, the 100 meter champion, returns and is bolstered by Chalsea Clarke, Ashley Graves, Courtney Kearse, Nastasya Rodrigues and Medinah Nabadduka.

Meanwhile, East Catholic has a young team featuring Kelly McKenna, Elena Gandiaga and Ashley Leonard.

Also on the track, Rachel Van Gilder will try to build on a solid indoor season as RHAM-Hebron visits Fermi. Or maybe you just want to watch Maggie Sundberg in action again, even if it’s not with a basketball in her hands. You can find her with the E.O. Smith track team, which is at Bloomfield.

Perhaps spring to you means tennis. If so, a trip out to Tolland, which hosts Manchester, to watch Tolland seniors Sarah Anischik and Katie Rhodes is a wise investment. Or you could stop at Bolton and watch visiting Ellington/Somers and sophomore Hannah Riley, who made it to the second round of the State Open last year only to be stopped by the state’s top player, Mercy-Middletown’s Margot Schumann.

Maybe you want a little more action to kick off your spring. If so, you should wait until Thursday and watch two of the best girls lacrosse teams in the region meet when Ally Pasquariello and Suffield visit Ellington at 5:15 p.m. Both teams reached the state tournament a year ago.

Perhaps you’re a traditionalist, in which case, Opening Day has a diamond in it.

Here there are plenty of options. Somers, has an interim coach in Melanie Zamorski, but also has Jojo Meunier, perhaps the best pitcher in the region. It opens at Avon.

East Windsor improved from 1-16 to 9-11 without benefit of a senior under coach Karen Drake. This year, Drake has four seniors Briana Matteson, Kayla Herson, LaShonda Hilson and Alicia Meyers to provide leadership. Drake and her team open at Granby.

In Rockville, coach Frank Levick is again dealing with the loss of seniors including Ali Burg, Kristen Messier, Erin Selavka and Amy Yost but this is hardly atypical. Rockville lost six senior starters heading into last season and improved from 17-6 to 17-4.

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