We have come to that magical time of year that happens each sports season — tournament time.

For our local wrestling teams, that time of year begins Saturday.

Brandywine, Buchanan, Cassopolis, Dowagiac, Edwardsburg and Niles will all begin their postseason quests at various locations on Saturday.

Brandywine and Buchanan will compeate for BCS Athletic Conference individual and team championships at Parchment High School.

Niles will head east to Richland to compete for the SMAC championship at Gull Lake High School, while Edwardsburg will host Dowagiac and the rest of the Wolverine Conference.

Cassopolis is in a different situation in the Southwest 10 as it only has two individual wreslters.

Both will compete for championships at Bangor High School.

I love this time of year.

The regular season has once again provided some outstanding matches, but everything gets ramped up a notch when the conference and state tournaments arrive.

We have some quality teams again this season and even more quality individual wrestlers, many of which will contend for championshiops both at the conference and state levels.

I cannot wait for next week’s Division 2 team district tournament in Stevensville.

Three outstanding wrestling teams will slug it out for the right to move on.

No. 7-ranked Lakeshore, No. 10-ranked Niles and an unranked Edwardsburg team that deserved to be ranked, will meet with a district championship hanging in the balance.

The Vikings and Eddies must go through each other before facing Lakeshore, which should have no trouble with St. Joseph.

Niles or Edwardsburg will have their hands full with the Lancers, who have returned to being an area powerhouse.

Over at Buchanan, the Division 3 district will be very competitive with the Bucks hosting Brandywine, Dowagiac and Constantine.

The Bobcats have won 11 consecutive team district titles.

Dowagiac is a much improved wrestling team that went 7-2 in the Wolverine Conference, while Buchanan continues to show improvement.

So, let us get thing started.

Scott Novak is sports editor for Leader Publications. He can be reached at scott.novak@leaderpub.com.