Daylight savings time aside, Coach Sly is ready to spring forward.

Lord knows there ain't any basketball to discuss, so we might as well start looking forward to spring sports, even if most are still a couple weeks away from opening up.

Sly wants to hear which teams and players are going to be stealing the headlines this spring. Baseball, softball, soccer, tennis, track ... Sly doesn't care what the sport is, as long as it fills the stony silence of mid-March in the Tri-Cities.

Is Geneva baseball poised to pick up where Batavia left off last year and make a run at a sectional championship? Sly's been hearing a lot about this Geneva baseball bunch the last couple years ... is it finally going to come together in a big way this spring?

Which side of St. Charles is the better baseball and softball going to be played on? (Sly sure wouldn't bet against North softball, but East has some nice returnees, too).

We had two state champs in boys track last year, and one of them is back for more. Who else is going to tear up the blue track in May?

After a hoops postseason like this one (minus the Geneva girls), Sly could sorely use some some spring sports chatter.

Who else is ready to start dodging raindrops?

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Steps? Sly's not so sure.

While the traveling call on Dave Dudzinski in the waning seconds of Friday's regional title game with DeKalb will surely irk Kaneland Nation for some time, the savviest of Knights' fans should know it didn't decide the outcome.

Dudz might have soared in for a tying layup, sure, but what the Knights really needed well before that and well after was a second established scoring option. It was like that all season. Bailey, Denlinger, Colombe, et al. wore the hat at various points, but they weren't always as bankable as their 6-9 leader in the middle.

It's only urban legend that the clipboard this fox is holding contains the blueprints of the box-and-one, so don't even think that. It would have been nice to see the Knights knock off the Barbs after two earlier losses in the WSC, and if Dudzinski played the way he did in Friday's first half, who would have known after that?

Suburban Christian counterparts ACC and St. Francis fell in their own regional title games Friday, so it's officially time to trade in those sneakers for spikes. Goodbye to Dudz and GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTHH and a bumper crop of other talented seniors.

Hard to believe the run is over.

This Friday night had so much promise just 48 hours ago.

The Geneva girls basketball team was likely headed for the state semifinals. You figured at least one Tri-Cities boys basketball team might be able to sneak into a regional final.

Nope, and nope.

Wednesday night's boys basketball results shouldn't come as a big surprise after a dicey year of local hoops, but it's disappointing nonetheless. St. Charles North, Batavia and Geneva all went down. (St. Charles East started the fly-dropping with a loss on Monday).

Of the defeats, North's is most disappointing. The North Stars aren't a great team, but they had the players to be a legit contender to win a regional. But with Josh Mikes hobbled, North scored 36 points in a loss to Bartlett. Did Sly say "Ugh"?

Now the party's in Maple Park on Friday night as Kaneland takes on DeKalb. Nice to be in Class 3A.

Sly has a hard time seeing the Knights comin' out on top in this one, but if Double-D and Co. can finally get the DeKalb monkey off their back, it'd be a heck of a story. Should be a rocking gym for that one.

Otherwise, with all due respect to ACC and St. Francis, it's a loooong wait til spring sports.

Ugh.

There's just something wrong in Coach Sly's book about losing one game all season and not having a chance to lace em up again.

The Geneva girls season ends at 31-1 after Monday night's loss to Hersey, and because of the timing of that one loss, there's no chance for the Vikings to shake this one off and start a new winning streak.

Season over, no state trip. Guess 31-game winning streaks don't get you as much as they used to.

You'd love to see what a group of competitors like this would do to follow up a loss. Sly wouldn't want to be the next team in their path, but unfortunately, we won't get to see it play out.

Emotionally, Sly can only imagine how difficult this loss is for a team that in the back of their mind has been thinking about making it back to state since, well, a few hours after last season ended.

But these girls are smart enough to know there's only so much moping that can be done. Hersey's a heck of a team, too, and deserves their moment of glory.

Could the ending have been a happier one for the Vikings? Heck yeah. But for seniors like Augustine and Wicinski to be able to say they were 63-3 their juniors and senior seasons, well, that's plenty of bragging material to occupy their grandkids one day.

Coach Sly heartily salutes another fabulous season for the Geneva girls hoops program. In an otherwise so-so winter of roundball around the Tri-Cities, these girls created a buzz from November on.

And Coach Sly is always thinkin' about next year, even if it's too early for the girls to stomach.

This year's team showed three returning starters go a long way in a program that barely considers it a legit winning streak anymore until it hits 30.

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Thirty one wins down, one more needed to send the Geneva girls back to the Final Four in Class 4A.

Sly doesn't think the Vikings are by any means a shoe-in against a quality Hersey outfit on Monday but coach Nolan's team has given little reason to doubt them.

Coach Sly's not sure what has been more impressive: The way Geneva shares the rock, or Lauren Wicinski's rebounding. She has just beaten people up on the glass all postseason, and those second and third chance points are a killer when combined with the Vikings' other strengths.

Should be a lot of fun on Monday night. Bolingbrook would probably be waiting in the semis if Geneva wins, so you never know when the fun will come to an end.

This has been an outstanding, outstanding run by Vikings. Sly advises everyone to soak it up as long as it lasts.

If you're on the fence about attending on Monday, get out to Streamwood and root the girls on. Monday nights are a snore after NFL season ends.

If you don't think girls basketball is your thing and you've never seen this team play, go out and check them out ... they play a very entertaining brand of basketball, and they play awfully hard.

You never know, maybe it'll be that extra boost from the stands that helps push them to a return trip downstate.

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We got down to one area girls basketball team awfully quick, and Coach Sly worries that winnowing process will come even quicker when it comes to the boys next week.

Part of the fun of March Madness is the surprises that pop up, and we’ll need a few of those to keep the boys basketball postseason from screeching to a quick halt around these parts.

Coach Sly’s hoping someone can rise up and do enough damage next week to earn a trip to sectionals.

St. Charles North has a decent chance at Bartlett and some recent postseason success to hang their hat on. Geneva is playing on its homecourt and can be tough to beat if it grabs an early lead. Kaneland also is hosting a regional, and man, are the Knights ever due to beat DeKalb if it comes to that.

Batavia and St. Charles East have had their moments this season. So has Marmion.

Who’s going to rise up and carry the torch, at least for one more week?

Hey, Sly knows times are rough, and Kaneland's school district has bigger problems than sports on its hands these days.

But thinkin' like the sports-lover he is, Sly gulped pretty hard when he read that middle school sports might very well be on the chopping block at Kaneland because of the financial problems.

Not only would this be a bummer for the middle schoolers themselves, but missing out on that experience won't do them any favors when it comes time for high school sports, either.

Sly would love to hear from Kaneland-backers on this one: how likely do you think it is that middle school sports go bye-bye, and if that happens, how big a blow would it be to the Knights at the high school level, down the road?

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Sly's taking absolutely nothing away from a Grade-A, clutch comeback win for the Geneva girls basketball team. It was a give-you-chills rally staged by a tremendous team.

The Vikings are 29-0. 'Nuff said.

But Sly can't help but feel bad ... make that awful ... for coach Colleen Brennan's North Stars. North had Geneva in scalding-hot water Thursday night, up double digits late in the third quarter, only to fall on a basket by Geneva in the closing seconds of the regional final.

Between Jenna Bell's battering play in the paint, some huge three-pointers by Tess Fischer, Dana Sibley and Kiley Hackbarth and fantastic hustle throughout the night, North deserved something great to happen.

Instead, North got a little too large a dose of Lauren Wicinski, and heartache.

North wasn't flawless. The Stars' free-throw shooting wasn't so hot, and they turned it over a couple times late in the game. But the good far outweighed the bad, and they were tantalizingy close to what might have been the most glorious win in program history.

To their credit, the Stars showed without a doubt that they thought they could beat Geneva, and they played like it.

Sly hopes the loss doesn't cheat the Stars out of the pride they ought to be feeling for an effort that should give their fans goosebumps, even in defeat.

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