The Columbian has begun its series of honoring the best in high school sports for the fall season of 2022 with our All-Region athletes of the year and teams.
The series began in Tuesday’s edition with girls swimming. It continues on Wednesday with boys cross country, which will be followed by girls cross country, volleyball, girls soccer, football and finishing up next Tuesday with slowpitch softball.
The honorees for boys tennis and boys golf will be released in the spring after state championships are held.
A question I often get this time of year is how do the All-Region teams get selected.
The All-Region teams are selected by the sports staff of The Columbian. For team sports like football, volleyball, soccer and slowpitch softball, we sent ballots to area coaches to get some input from them before making our final selections.
For sports like swimming and cross country, we look at times posted by athletes in our region, with a particular emphasis placed on how athletes did in postseason events like state or district.
As I mentioned last week, the newspaper/news media business continues to experience changes, and we continue to adapt to those changes.
But sometimes, those changes present opportunities that would not have been available to us in the days when the print product was the priority.
On its website, Columbian.com, The Columbian publishes an e-edition. This is a digital replication of the printed version of the newspaper that hits newsracks and driveways most every day. The e-edition is available to subscribers who have unlimited access to Columbian.com.
In this e-edition, we have the capability of producing bonus content that appears online only.
So starting this fall, we are making a full-page commemorative e-edition page devoted to each of the All-Region athletes and teams. These pages include a large portrait of our All-Region athlete of the year in each sport, plus a listing of the selectees to the All-Region with headshot photos.
Our e-editions pages can be downloaded and then printed off.
A profile feature of our All-Region athletes of the year, plus a listing of the rest of the All-Region teams will continue to run in the printed edition of The Columbian as well at Columbian.com.
But the special e-edition pages will be available only to online subscribers.
So if you haven’t done so already, it might be a good time to consider a month’s online subscription. It’s only $9.99.
You may find you like the access to all of our content online at Columbian.com and at our Columbian app.
We hope you enjoy this new feature. We think it’s a way we can do more to celebrate the outstanding athletes who compete in high school sports in our region, which includes all of Clark County, Kelso, Longview, Castle Rock, Kalama, Stevenson and White Salmon.
Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor/prep coordinator for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4538, tim.martinez@columbian.com or follow his Twitter handle @360TMart.
