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Joel Reichenberger

Joel Reichenberger's column appears Sundays in the Steamboat Pilot & Today. Contact him at 871-4253 or e-mail jreichenberger@SteamboatToday.com.

Steamboat Springs — Steamboat Springs wasn't a town built with the high school spring sports season in mind - a fact made painfully clear as most of the local high school's spring teams bowed out in the first round of the playoffs or failed to make the postseason at all. Only the tennis team has been able to leap Mother Nature's hurdles so far.

The boys lacrosse and girls soccer squads struggled trying to convert wildly successful regular seasons into playoff runs. Meanwhile, the boys baseball team and several of Steamboat's top track and field athletes fell just short of advancing into the postseason or state meet.

Tennis, though, in the past two years has won the program's only two state championships, the most recent a gutsy three-set victory Saturday in Pueblo by the team's No. 1 doubles pair, Sara Bearss and Kylee Swiggart. Spring success is so hard in the Springs.

The baseball players get to work outside so rarely, there's an unsubstantiated rumor their eyes are evolving to work better in low-light situations.

The lacrosse team and girls soccer squad have proven again and again they are among the cream of the crop when it comes to mountain-area schools.

Truly, it's hard to find rivals for the two programs in all of Northwest Colorado.

They struggle in the playoffs, though, when they are cast against teams stocked with players who can work on dry fields 12 months a year.

Still, all those Steamboat programs are on the rise, and it's pretty easy to imagine them all finding ways to break through their geographic handicap in the next several seasons. The future looks bright for Steamboat Springs spring sports - but the future is now for the tennis program.

Sheltered from spring sports' altitude-based discrimination by the giant bubble at The Tennis Center at Steamboat Springs, the squad has proven that spring competitors from this quiet little mountain town can be more than a match for anyone in the state.

The best part for the tennis program is, things just seem to be getting started. The team has won five consecutive regional championships, and there's no reason to think it won't win a sixth. Going to state has become an expectation rather than an award. Of the 10 Sailors who traveled to last year's state tournament, seven made the trip back this year. All seven stand a good chance of returning next year, too.

The tennis team finished fourth in the state in 2007 and 2008. It was eighth this year. That may be a small step back, but this program is about to go even further. Next year, it will field a roster full of talented state-tournament veterans, and there's no limit to what the team members can accomplish as a group or as individuals.

Future spring seasons should be good for many Sailors sports squads. Look for the tennis program to continue leading the way.