Winter sports preview special section due out Sunday

It’s all work for our winter sports preview, which will be published with Sunday’s print edition of The Columbian.

And when that preview section hits the stands, Josh will be responsible for nearly 40 team preview stories in the 40-page section, which will also feature season previews on other winter sports like wrestling, boys swimming, gymnastics and girls bowling.

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Adding to Josh’s workload over the past weeks was our decision last summer to expand our coverage area.

So in addition to getting the lowdown on Clark County teams, Josh has also been talking to coaches at Kelso, Mark Morris, R.A. Long and Castle Rock, among others.

And while that has kept Josh busy, the extra work is appreciated, at least from coaches at those schools.

Our Cowlitz County coaches have been very responsive to our request to get their results to us. That will enable us to not only provide coverage of those teams, but to include those athletes in other features we provide like athlete-of-the-week nominees (which will start this week for the winter season) and basketball scoring leaders (which will make its debut in two weeks).

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Another place where our decision to expand our coverage is visible is with our end-of-season All-Region honors.

So far, athletes from Kelso and Castle Rock have been included in All-Region honors for volleyball and cross country.

This week, the All-Region team in girls soccer and the players of the year in soccer and slowpitch softball will be unveiled.

The All-Region fan vote for football will open on Tuesday, now that the football season is finally over.

And rest assured, basketball fans. We will be covering games this week.

Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor/preps coordinator for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4538, tim.martinez@columbian.com or follow his Twitter handle @360TMart.