Spring will have sprung completely on Monday.

Not that the local high school spring sports season had a week that didn’t count. Oh, just the opposite, as we’ve had a few tennis matches and a couple of outdoor track meets.

But the floodgates open beginning Monday. And out of hibernation come baseball, softball, boys volleyball and boys and girls lacrosse to join the fray.

And if there’s less than 10 local events any day except Sundays in the next six to eight weeks, it will be because it rained.

As one local athletic official said, “It’s a marathon and a sprint all in one.”

Spring is still a special season for a lot of coaches, players and administrators. Why? Because it’s still fresh in their minds that the student athletes lost an entire spring season two years ago that They were sophomores then, and they are seniors now. This is their time.

Some programs are seeing a bounce back from last year with increased numbers. It took a couple of years, but many programs are just recovering. Some, however, are just trying to get back. They can barely field a varsity team, and forget about any sub varsity.

We should be able to return to Holman Stadium this week for the first time since the Silver Knights ended the home portion of their season last early August. Nashua South will be hosting Goffstown on Monday, and North is slated to be there Tuesday vs. Portsmouth.

It will be interesting to see the crowd makeup on Monday; there could be a few pro scouts there to see Panthers shortstop Albert De La Rosa, who left the area after his freshman season but came back during this school year. He was good as a freshman, and the word is he is a draftable real deal as a senior.

Stellos Stadium gets a full schedule – it’s been busy with lacrosse practices already – and it starts Monday with the defending champion Bishop Guertin girls lax team hosting Londonderry. The Cardinals have cornered the market on Division I lacrosse and it will be interesting to see how things unfold this spring. The Cardinal girls have followed the Brad Kreick/girls hoop mode with some tougher out-of-state opponents in Lawrence Central Catholic, Moses Brown, Newburyport, and Notre Dame-Hingham on the docket. The boys under Chris Cameron are also back playing out of state competition – Xaverian, Acton-Boxboro, B.C. High, to name a few. A lot of the interstate games weren’t able to be played last year due to the different pandemic schedules, and reluctance of Massachusetts teams to play out of state.

There’s a lot more fun ahead. We already had a pretty good signature event last week when Bedford and Nashua South met in a boys tennis match that was closer than the final 7-2 score indicated – and ended literally in darkness.

But the light shines this week. The final sports season – and perhaps the busiest – of the school year gets underway.

The days can be marathons. But the season is a sprint. Blink and you may miss it. You won’t want to do that, so head out to a game near you.

tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.

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