I know baseball spring training is underway and the thought of sunny days and temperatures in the 60s being just around the corner warms my heart, but locally it's still basketball season around here.

That said, what a wild weekend we had in the Section 9 finals.

Let's start with the champions. Five area teams — Marlboro and Pine Plains in boys and Red Hook, Highland and Coleman Catholic in girls — are on their way to regionals. While Pine Plains, Highland and Coleman had relatively easy times in winning their respective titles, Marlboro and Red Hook had everything they could handle in their finals.

The Iron Dukes earned their first sectional title since 1989 by overcoming a double-digit deficit in the third quarter to beat Red Hook in overtime. The boys loss denied Raider nation a sweep of the A titles after the girls squad held off top-seeded Cornwall in their final.

Things won't get any easier for either team, as well as the other three as we head into regionals. Defending state D champion Coleman was bounced up to C this year, while Highland faces a familiar foe in Irvington — the team that knocked the Huskies out of regionals the past two years.

Let's hope all five of our local teams can ride the momentum of winning sectionals all the way through to states.

Congratulations on a great job thus far.