Sez MEE: The end is near for the 2022-23 sports season
What happened? All of a sudden, we're experiencing spring temperatures. Too bad the end of the spring sports season is rapidly approaching because it is just now getting to be quite comfortable to get outside and watch some ballgames or track meets.
Unlike the other seasons, the spring campaign has a sense of finality to it. It means the end of the school year is near.
Graduation at Pontiac Township High School will be May 21, and all the area schools will be out for the summer by the end of the first week of June.
The spring postseason for begins Wednesday, May 10, with a girls' track sectional at Kankakee. Pontiac and Prairie Central will be competing there in an effort to advance to state. The state meet will take place May 19-20 at Eastern Illinois University. The area Class 1A girls will compete at the El Paso-Gridley Sectional on Thursday. Involved are athletes from Dwight, EPG and Ridgeview-Lexington. Their state meet begins May 18.
The boys will compete at sectional next week. In Class 2A Pontiac and Prairie Central will compete at the Dunlap Sectional on Wednesday, May 17. In Class 1A, EPG will be hosting a sectional on May 17. Dwight and Ridgeview-Lexington will also compete next Wednesday at Gibson City.
Baseball and softball will also begin postseason next week. Prairie Central will open postseason diamond play on Monday with regional openers. The softball Hawks will host Momence in the opening round of the Class 2A Herscher Regional. The baseball Hawks travel to Clinton for a first-round game in the Tri-Valley Regional.
The Pontiac Softball Team will compete at the Iroquois West Regional in Onarga and will begin postseason play next Tuesday against the winner of the Iroquois West-Hoopeston game.
PTHS is the favored team to come out of the regional. If so, this would bring Nicole Hayner's Nine home for the sectional, which is being held at The Diamond at Williamson Field May 23-26.
Besides Prairie Central, Lexington-Ridgeview will be playing in the Herscher Regional. The Minutemen will meet Clifton in the semifinals. Like the Iroquois West winner, the champion of the Herscher Regional will advance to the Pontiac Sectional. Completing that field will be the winners from Beecher and Coal City.
As it looks, this could be one of the top two sectional fields in Class 2A. The winner will advance to the Benedictine Supersectional in Lisle.
In Class 1A, Dwight will be hosting a regional as the top seed. The Trojans will take on the winner St. Anne-Grace Christian game in the semifinals. The second-seeded team at DTHS is Woodland. The Woodland-Flanagan-Cornell co-op Warriors will take on Gardner-South Wilmington.
The Dwight Regional winner will move on to the Walther Christian Sectional at Melrose Park. The supersectional will be at Illinois Wesleyan.
In baseball, Pontiac will take part in the Class 2A Eureka Regional and Prairie Central is in the 2A Tri-Valley Regional. As noted, PC will open on the road at Clinton. A Hawks win puts them in the semifinal round opposite favorite Tremont on May 17.
The Pontiac Baseball Team is seeded third in the sub-sectional and second at the Eureka Regional. A possible championship game preview was scheduled to take place today (May 10) at The Ballpark at Williamson Field with PTHS and Eureka squaring off. No doubt neither team will be throwing their top hurlers in this one.
To get to the regional final, Pontiac will need to get past El Paso-Gridley in the semifinal round on May 18.
The Eureka Regional winner advances to the Millikin Sectional in Decatur. That champion advances to the Lincoln Land Supersectional in Springfield.
In Class 1A, all three area teams will be competing at the Lexington Regional. Heyworth is the top seed with Dwight as the second-seed in the field and third seed in the sub-sectional.
Interestingly, Lexington will play its first regional game on the road despite being the host. The Minutemen are seeded lower than Gardner-South Wilmington and will meet the Panthers on their home field on Monday.
Also on Monday, Woodland will hit the road to play Roanoke-Benson in an opening-round game. If Woodland wins, it will meet Heyworth at Keller Park on May 17. The other semifinal will have Dwight taking on the winner of the Lexington-GSW contest on May 18.
And, when each of these teams loses in the postseason — remember, only two teams win their final game of the season — that sense of finality will begin to set in. With that, a summer of work and fun will begin before it starts all over again in August with a new school year and a new sports season.
Erich Murphy is managing editor of the Daily Leader in Pontiac. His email is emurphy@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Pontiac Daily Leader: Erich Murphy's Sez MEE: The end is near for the 2022-23 sports season
