There is no surer sign of the arrival of spring than the crack of the bat and the sound of a ball smacking into a mitt. Saugerties High School varsity baseball is here, and the Sawyers are looking to build on last year’s successes one game at a time.

For two and a half decades, Gregg Jones has been closely associated with Rondout Valley school athletics. But it was because of his accomplishments in Saugerties that Jones is being inducted into the Saugerties Sports Hall of Fame Club Class of 2019 next month. 

George Beisel, a lifelong Saugerties resident, a longtime village employee most recently in the Water Department, is now a member of the Saugerties Sports Hall of Fame Club’s Class of 2019.

The Saugerties High School varsity baseball team has a long history of excellence, but no team has ever bettered the run by the 1985 squad, which won the state championship. Robert Dodig, Jr., who will be enshrined in the Saugerties Sports Hall of Fame Club this April, was a key player on that team.

The early-season struggles faced by the Saugerties High School girls’ varsity basketball appear to have been left behind, as the team’s hot streak continued through a cold January.

Johnson could help turn around the 2-5 team.

The Sawyer boys’ varsity basketball team has been struggling in their first season without Dior Johnson, the phenom who played two varsity seasons in Saugerties before accepting an offer to play at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida for his freshman season.

Chloe Hanson, the sole runner from Saugerties High School at the New York State Public High School Athletic Association cross-country championships this year, placed 40th in a field of 113 in this past Saturday’s Class B race.

In two key games last week, the grand experiment of the merged Saugerties High and John A. Coleman Catholic High boys’ varsity soccer team showed promising signs.

If the Saugerties High School varsity football team was looking to make a statement with the playoffs looming, they couldn’t have played it any better than they did last Saturday with a dominant 63-0 Mum Bowl drubbing of visiting sectional foe Monticello.