By Staff
I am so glad the month of December is over.
Winter sports season just begins to get rolling and along comes the holiday break.
Since very few of our teams now compete in tournaments over Christmas vacation, it's like the season begins all over again with the coming of January.
Some of our teams have gotten off to great starts, while other are struggling.
The Buchanan and Niles girls' basketball teams are playing extremely well right now.
The Lady Bucks lost just their first game of the season the other night against Lakeshore, while the Lady Vikings upped their record to 4-2 with a victory over the Chieftains on Monday night.
Brandywine, Cassopolis and Dowagiac are all around the .500 mark, while Edwardsburg picked up just its first win of the season on Thursday night.
The same thing can be said about our boys' basketball teams.
Three out of the six are off to good starts.
Cassopolis leads the pack at 5-2, while Edwardsburg is 4-2 and Buchanan is also above .500 on the season.
Brandywine, Dowagiac and Niles have all stumbled out of the gate, but are looking to turn things around in 2009.
Wrestling is another story as all but one of the six schools are enjoying successful starts.
Buchanan, Edwardsburg, Brandywine, Cassopolis and Niles are all hoping that early success will lead to bigger things down the road.
Dowagiac on the other hand, short on numbers and experience, is hoping that the new year will bring steady improvement as the season goes along.
It's nice to see our local athletes enjoying a good start to their seasons.
Winning early leads to a more enjoyable season for both the players and the coaches.
Winning breeds winning as they say and part of that is because it is much easier to work harder in practice and dedicate yourself when you can see the benefits on game night.
Teams who do not get out of the chute on a positive note tend to struggle throughout the season.
Everything seems to come harder for those teams and individuals.
It is tough to keep a positive attitude when you don't see your hard work translate into victories.
But listen up athletes, if you continue to work hard and dedicate yourself to getting better every day, things will turn around.
The numbers may not bear this out, but steady improvement as the season goes along will eventually pay off.
We as a society spend way too much time worrying about winning and losing.
That's not why you are supposed to play the game. Playing high school sports is a learning experience.
And I can tell you for a fact that you learn more from a loss than you do from a victory.
Overcoming adversity builds character and that is probably the most important thing a high school athlete can take away from his playing days.