Seth Romsa

I, like many people in the area, run by a mostly set calendar with the school year dictating much of what goes on in my day-to-day life.

Over the summer, a bit of a break hits as I get the opportunity to go out and get more exercise while primarily focusing on covering baseball as well as a number of camps around the area that help the athletes of the Big Horn Basin, and especially Powell, improve.

Baseball once again made the summer enjoyable and a great group of kids in the dugout made it another fun time despite the program not winning its third straight championship.

The basin has been a hot spot for baseball over the past 16 years, as the northwest corner of the state has won the ‘A’ title six years in a row and only five times since 2009 has a team not from the northwest corner brought the championship back home.

I look forward to that group getting better over the coming months before hitting it into high gear again next year looking to reclaim that title from our close neighbors in Lovell, which won its first state baseball title since 1986.

Good luck to the Mustangs in the Northwest Class ‘A’ Regional Tournament which kicks off Thursday in Burley, Idaho.

Despite baseball season being over in Wyoming for ‘A’, the ‘AA’ level held its state tournament last week in Cheyenne, with Gillette winning its first title since 2014 in a chaotic tournament from start to finish, in a championship that didn’t feature the Cheyenne Sixers for the first time since 1999.

It has been a fun summer for baseball, but with the heat winding down and college kids beginning to arrive on campus, fall sports are set to hit in a flurry over the next month.

College soccer and volleyball already have athletes on campus and practices have begun for them as they prepare for contests in a couple of weeks, kicking off their seasons which will likely end in late October or in November.

Rodeo is set to start in a couple of weeks with practice before opening their short fall season at home in early September and ending in late September.

High school sports kick off next week, as golf and tennis will begin their short seasons as we are already just a month-and-a-half away from state golf in Cody on Sept. 19-20 and just under two months away from state tennis in Gillette on Sept. 19-20.

Both of those teams bring back experience in a number of different ways and should be competitive whether it be individually or as a team, with some individuals looking for some high placements at state.

Youth will be the word throughout a lot of sports in the fall season for the Panthers, with a number of senior athletes graduating a year ago and a host of young athletes joining in to replace them.

Volleyball and football should have young cores that will need a year to develop before hitting the ground running next year. Girls’ swimming and cross country do return some experience at the top but will have some good talent with their younger athletes who should be able to contribute right away.

The end of the summer means that school kicks off in a couple of weeks, and a long time before a sigh of relief comes with breaks in November and December for me.

I will be out and about the coming weeks, gathering information for the fall seasons while wrapping up the remainder of summer stories including our younger baseball teams and the final camps that have taken place in late July and early August.

I am hopeful that the Panthers can show significant growth in all their sports by season’s end and perform their best when state competitions roll around, with another long year up ahead.