{"id":78097,"date":"2016-03-28T16:09:07","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T16:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sandbox.web.rcn.net\/rcntv\/?p=78097"},"modified":"2023-02-24T16:44:21","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T16:44:21","slug":"sportstalk-shop-spring-pre-season-hs-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astound.com\/atvn\/sportstalk-shop-spring-pre-season-hs-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"The SportsTalk Shop:  Spring Pre-Season HS Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/InyB1xlRSA8\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As much as I love basketball season, I do enjoy the start of the spring sports season.\u00a0 If the weather cooperates and allows athletes time to get outside (and leads to warmer weather), it\u2019s even better!<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve always felt the spring coaches, in general, have the toughest assignments preparing for their seasons.\u00a0 They not only have to wait for the winter sports teams seasons to conclude to get going, they almost always have to wait for Mother Nature to accommodate them\u2014not just with current weather issues, but snow, rain and cold temperatures during the previous months can literally set sports programs back days, or even weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Then, they have to contend with the mandatory final days of the school year (and sports season) that sneak up on them in seemingly no time.\u00a0 Factor in all the proms, socials, year-of-school activities, vacations and so many other distractions\u2026it really is tough for high school kids to keep their focus this time of year\u2014not to mention have success on the field (or on the court, for the tennis and volleyball athletes).<\/p>\n<p>There are some interesting Lehigh Valley storylines for the spring sports high school season, including the following:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201c<strong>Tony\u2019s Return\u201d<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nOur good friend Tony Cocca is making his return to coaching after a long tenure as both the softball and football coach at Whitehall High School.\u00a0\u00a0 Tony compiled a 90-78 record while piloting the Zephyrs teams in the early 2000s.\u00a0 He takes over a Blue Eagle team that dipped a bit last year, finishing 6-10 in league play (7-13 overall), but still captured a Lehigh Valley Conference title just a few seasons ago.<\/p>\n<p>District XI has always been a hotbed for outstanding softball programs, and this year will not be an exception (both Parkland and Bethlehem Catholic won State Championships a year ago).\u00a0 Despite losing some very talented players to graduation, the Trojans figure to be one of the top teams in the league again this year, and Coach Cocca will have his hands full with a ton of EPC teams loaded on the schedule.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><strong><em>\u201cAnother \u2018Tony\u2019 Moves On\u201d<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\nSpeaking of Parkland, one of the area\u2019s top baseball coaches, Tony Galucy, will not be at the helm of this year\u2019s Parkland baseball team.\u00a0 Tony was very accommodating when we in the media would ask for questions and was a great interviewee, whether his teams won (which they usually did) or lost.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure the Trojans will be in good hands this year and will be one of several teams expected to do well in the very competitive skyline division (it\u2019s nearly as competitive for baseball as it has been for boys\u2019 basketball).<\/p>\n<p>Another team in their division, Northampton, is rumored to be fielding a very strong team this spring, and we\u2019ll be taking a closer look at this year\u2019s K-Kids team with a feature on them for this Thursday\u2019s \u201cSportsTalk\u201d show.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u201cHail Hannah\u201d<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\nIt has not been uncommon in recent years to have Lehigh Valley athletes and teams receive national attention, but Hannah Edwards has received some MAJOR accolades on an incredibly large scale.\u00a0 The Catasauqua senior softball player was just named to the 2016 American Family Insurance Preseason ALL-USA Softball Team.\u00a0 Hannah is one of three outfielders who were selected on a nationwide team that included a total of 25 players.\u00a0 The Rough Riders\u2019 star was also recently named to the MaxPreps 2016 Pre-Season Softball Team and has now been named to nine All-American teams during her high school career.<\/p>\n<p>Catasauqua is always competitive in softball and features a number of talented players on this year\u2019s squad, so don\u2019t be surprised if we hear quite a bit about their softball team in the weeks ahead.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u201cOne More Winter Shout-Out!\u201d<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\nThe sport that also always gets lots coverage during the winter sports season is the girls and boys swimmers and divers.\u00a0 With the conclusion of their season, the names of the All-Eastern Pennsylvania Conference members were released to the media last week.<\/p>\n<p>I hope everyone checks out the list of some tremendous accomplishments by these athletes in the pool this winter!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/atvn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/EPC16SW-All-Conference-page-1-Girls.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-78098\" src=\"\/atvn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/EPC16SW-All-Conference-page-1-Girls.png\" alt=\"EPC16SW All-Conference-page 1 Girls\" width=\"474\" height=\"614\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/atvn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/EPC16SW-All-Conference-page-2-Boys.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-78099\" src=\"\/atvn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/EPC16SW-All-Conference-page-2-Boys.png\" alt=\"EPC16SW All-Conference-page 2 Boys\" width=\"475\" height=\"613\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Remember, we are always on the lookout for high school teams and athletes to feature here on our blogs and on our \u201cSportsTalk\u201d TV show and podcasts.\u00a0 Email your suggestions to us at <a href=\"mailto:rcnsportstalk@rcn.com\">rcnsportstalk@rcn.com<\/a> and tune in for our spring shows and high school features!<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As much as I love basketball season, I do enjoy the start of the spring sports season.\u00a0 If the weather cooperates and allows athletes time to get outside (and leads to warmer weather), it\u2019s even better! I\u2019ve always felt the spring coaches, in general, have the toughest assignments preparing for their seasons.\u00a0 They not only&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"Yoast SEO Relevanssi index exclude","inline_featured_image":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-sports","category-the-sportstalk-shop"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The SportsTalk Shop: Spring Pre-Season HS Notes - ATVN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The SportsTalk Shop: Spring Pre-Season HS Notes - ATVN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As much as I love basketball season, I do enjoy the start of the spring sports season.\u00a0 If the weather cooperates and allows athletes time to get outside (and leads to warmer weather), it\u2019s even better! 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