The first official day of practice for spring sports is an exciting time for schools across Pennsylvania.

Hope springs eternal for teams across the Commonwealth, with plenty of reason for optimism as student-athletes return to playing fields for the first time following a winter spent indoors.But March 7 was particularly special for Pleasant Valley.After a year of competing at the junior varsity level, the district kicked off a new era in athletics with the first varsity practices for the boys' and girls' lacrosse teams."It has been exciting going through the process of adding a new sport here at PV with lots to learn," said Pleasant Valley Athletic/Activities Director Jake Percey.Percey has been able to lean on great leadership from both head coaches, with Vince Arezzi leading the boys' team and Toni Bush taking the reigns of the girls' squad.Both Arezzi and Bush have been heavily involved with the Pleasant Valley Youth Association (PVYA) in recent years and are familiar with the area."It's incredible to be a part of this program," said Arezzi. "I live in the district, and my kids are part of the youth program. I've been part of the youth lacrosse program for a while, which our assistant coach Eric Batstone started years ago and was gracious enough to let me participate in."Next year, we will graduate some of the players that helped start our youth program. I've had the privilege of coaching some of these boys when they were just starting out, and seeing them graduate as part of our new high school program will be a special moment."Bush has been with the PVYA since 2009-10, and has served in a variety of roles, including coach and commissioner.Growing up in Philadelphia, where lacrosse is much more prominent, Bush admitted she was surprised the sport didn't have the same presence in Monroe County."After graduating from ESU and remaining in the area to live and work, I was really surprised to see that lacrosse was obsolete in this area," said Bush. "I joke with my husband because he once told me that I would never see the sport in this area. I said, 'You just wait!'"Our youth organization, PVYA, worked extremely hard over the past six years to grow the sport within the community and get the teams to the point where a high school team could be supported with experienced freshman."While working with the PVYA has helped establish a sense of familiarity, Arezzi has also been able to use his experience as an assistant under Joe Sexton at Liberty High School when the Hurricanes started their program."Working with Joe at the start of that Liberty boys program gave me some insight into building a program from scratch - very similar to what we are doing now at PV," said Arezzi. "The most important thing is building the culture. That will sustain you while you build the skills."Transitioning to PV as head coach felt like coming home. I knew the boys from time spent at PVYA and had kept in touch with many of them even as I coached at other locations."The shift to varsity competition against more established programs is one that will take time. But it's a challenge coaches and players are ready to accept."The transition has been exciting, stressful and hard work for all of us. We have a solid base of talent, but trying to step into the EPC and District 11 brings with it a lot of pressure," said Bush. "Our entire team, staff, and players have worked tremendously hard to prepare in the offseason. We are not content with just getting our feet wet and starting from the bottom up. We want to be competitors in the conference and understand the magnitude of that goal."So far, the early returns have been largely positive. As of this writing, (April 20) the girls owned a 5-3 mark while the boys carried a record of 4-7.Regardless of their records, both squads have continued to improve and progress since the start of the season."The newer boys that have thrown themselves at this game are improving at a rapid rate," said Arezzi. "We have a few experienced boys that played in the youth program, but many of the boys that helped us start the high school team had never played a game of lacrosse before last year."Our experienced players have been tremendous leaders, becoming extensions of the coaching staff as we try to get everyone up to speed. It took some time for us to mesh as a unit this year. We're still making some adjustments to see which boys work well together and have complementary skill sets."With a girls' squad that features many underclassmen, Bush is happy with the progress she's seen and looking forward to what's to come."This is very exciting because we have several more years with most of this team. The growth potential is extraordinary," said Bush. "I have coached many of these young ladies for varying numbers of years and their growth as players is incredible. It is hard for me to distinguish their growth just from last year until now because I have worked with them for longer."I can say that the level of dedication that the majority of our players possess in the offseason is impressive and has helped us to get to this point."For two programs that are just getting started, the future certainly looks bright."My expectations moving forward are to take one game at a time," said Bush. "We want to set the bar high for future players in our program and establish a solid, well-respected program. If we can accomplish these goals, I believe that other districts in the area will follow our lead.""Community support has been great and we've seen a lot of growth at the younger levels," added Arezzi. "It's exciting to be a part of something like this."*******Every Thursday during the spring sports season, the Times News will publish its annual "Spring Sports Notebook" reflecting back on the week that was, and highlighting both individual and team accomplishments, as well as interesting information that may have occurred in games and matches. The weekly notebook will cover baseball, softball, tennis, and lacrosse, and will consist of storylines from the previous seven days (Wednesday-Tuesday). Times News sports writer Jason Boris will be handling the compilation of notes and is encouraging all local coaches to email him with noteworthy information that can be used in this column. Emails can be sent to

jboris@tnonline.com.*******BASEBALLTHE MEN OF MARIAN ... With two more wins this week, Marian improved to 7-0 and is the only remaining undefeated team in the Times News area. Perhaps even more impressive though is the manner in which Marian is winning. In those seven games, the Colts have outscored their opponents 67-2. The only teams to score a run against Marian this year have been Freeland MMI and Shenandoah Valley.A GRAND FINALE ... There were three grand slams hit this week, two of which occurred in the same game. In Weatherly's 19-11 victory on Saturday against Lincoln Leadership Academy, both Dillon Bizarre and Chris MacNeal went deep in the same game to clear the bases. It was the first home runs of the season (in seven games) for the Wreckers. Last Wednesday, Northern Lehigh's Ashton Bevans hit a grand slam in the bottom of the sixth inning to erase a 3-1 defict and propel the Bulldogs to a 5-3 Colonial League victory over Catasauqua. Similar to Weatherly, it was Northern Lehigh's first home run of the season (in 11 games).WIN STREAKS ... Heading into yesterday's games, there were currently three area teams on winning streaks. Marian, which has yet to lose this season, is riding a seven-game winning streak. Northwestern won all four of its games this past week and is on a four-game winning streak, as the Tigers have won eight of their last nine games. Jim Thorpe answered a four-game losing streak with a three-game winning streak to even up their overall record at 5-5.*******SOFTBALLHIT PARADE ... Lehighton and Panther Valley became the third and fourth teams this season to record 20 hits in a game. The Lady Indians accomplished the feat during an 18-1 victory over Pocono Mountain West on Saturday. Leading the Lehighton offense was Kayla Heffelfinger and Nicole Salerno, who each tallied four hits apiece. Rachel Serfass added three hits in the winning effort. Meanwhile, Panther Valley's offensive explosion came in Thursday's 19-17 slugfest agaist Shenandoah Valley. The other three local teams to have 20 hits in a game this season are the Northwestern baseball team and the Marian softball team.HOFFMAN HOMERS ... Northern Lehigh's Kaitlin Hoffman belted her third home run of the season in Monday's 6-4 victory over Palmerton. The two-run blast ties Hoffman with Tamaqua's Cailyn Joseph (3) for the Times News area home run lead.IT'S MILLER TIME ... Panther Valley's Chloe Miller had an unbelievable week at the plate. Miller had 6 RBI in a 19-17 victory over Shenandoah Valley on Friday, and followed that up four days later with another six-RBI performance against Weatherly (in a 12-9 Panthers victory).SCORING OUTBURST ... Heading into Friday's game against Shenandoah Valley (a 19-17 Panthers victory), Panther Valley recorded just six runs in its first four games of the season. In their previous nine games (dating back to last season), the Lady Panthers have scored a total of just 12 runs. Over the past two seasons, Panther Valley is 5-0 when it scores double-digit runs in a game, and 0-22 when it scores in single digits. In the past two seasons, the Lady Panthers have outscored Shenandoah Valley 43-21 in three games played.A PERFECT WEEK ... Tamaqua not only won all four games they played this past week, but managed to shut out all four of its opponents in the process. In games against Panther Valley, Blue Mountain, Lourdes Regional and Mahanoy Area, the Lady Raiders have outscored their foes 45-0.NO-HITTER FOR PEDERSEN ... Tamaqua's Bailey Pedersen is having a phenomenal season, as the senior pitcher capped it off with a five-inning no-hitter against Mahanoy Area on Tuesday afternoon. In the 10-0 Raiders win, Pedersen struck out four and allowed just one walk. Pedersen now has five complete game shutouts this season.*******TENNISTOP PLAYERS ... With the regular season winding down and the district tournaments set to begin next week, now is as good a time as any to take a sneak peak at the top singles players in the Times News area as they get ready for the postseason. At #1 singles, Lehighton's Tegan Durishin has a 7-3 overall record. At #2 singles, Josh Knappenberger from Lehighton has an 8-4 overall record. At #3 singles, Palmerton's Nate Andress has an overall record of 10-4.DISTRICT QUALIFIERS ... The District 11 Singles Tournament will open on Monday. Six area players qualified - five in Class AA and one in Class AAA.In AA, Palmerton will have three players in the 32-person bracket. The Bombers will be represented by Sal Melo, Seth Andress and Nate Andress. Lehighton's Tegan Durishan and Jim Thorpe's Shaun DiContanzo also qualfied. In AAA, Pleasant Valley's Steven Nale made the field. None of the area AA or AAA players is seeded among the top eight players in their bracket.The tournament opens on Monday with first and second round play at Parkland (Class AA) and Saucon Valley (Class AAA). Quarterfinal and semifinal round action in both classes will be held on Wednesday at Parkland. The finals in both classes will be held Friday at the Winning Touch Tennis in Allenown.*******LACROSSETIP OF THE HAT ... The Pleasant Valley girls lacrosse team dismantled Hazleton 20-4 last Friday in a non-league contest. The 20 goals scored was a new season-high for the first-year program. Individually in that game, four Lady Bears recorded "hat tricks." Savannah Bauman led the way with five goals. Jasmine VanSpange had four goals, and Alyssa Grieco and Danielle Butler had three goals apiece. It was Bauman's sixth hat trick this season. It also marked the first time this season that Pleasant Valley had more than two girls record hat tricks in the same match.