While the Free State High and Perry-Lecompton High football teams have taken the fall sports season into mid-November, the rest of the area schools kicked off the winter sports season on Monday.

Kansas State High School Activities Association rules dictated that boys and girls basketball, wrestling and boys swimming were able to break out the equipment for the first time on Monday and most schools took full advantage.

At Lawrence High, the opening day of practice marked Day 1 of the title-defense era for the girls basketball team. The LHS girls rode a deep and talented roster to the 2007 Class 6A basketball title and were back in the gym gunning for another one on Monday.

Senior Taylor Bird, a starter and one of the top scorers on last year’s squad said hitting the hardwood again was great feeling.

“I actually came early because I was so excited,” Bird said. “It’s just really exciting to start back up again.”

Like most schools, LHS uses the first three or four days of practice for tryouts, meaning that the true grunt work of defending their title won’t start quite yet for the LHS girls. Still, Lions coach Kristin Mallory said she hoped her team would worry more about the task at hand than what was accomplished a season ago.

“There’s something to be said for starting up as the defending champs,” Mallory said. “But I want the girls to focus on what’s ahead. This is a new year. I still want them to work toward the same goal, but I want this team to make a name for itself and not worry about what we did last year.”

Motivation was not a problem in the main gym at LHS, where Chris Davis’s boys team took the floor for the first time. The LHS boys reached the state title game in 2007 but left Emporia as the runners-up.

Davis said that alone was enough for his guys to hit the ground running in 2008.

“The taste of that championship game is still in everyones’ mouths,” Davis said. “Motivation is not an issue right now. It’s more like if I said, ‘There’s a wall, run through it,’ they would.”

Across town at Free State, Bryan Duncan’s girls basketball team and Chuck Law’s boys team practiced for the first time this season, as well.

Both coaches broke up the first day into two groups – sophomores new to the program and returning juniors and seniors.

For Duncan, the thrill of being back in the gym was met with a feeling of enthusiasm and nerves.

“That excitement and nervousness you feel at the beginning of the season is always a lot of fun,” Duncan said. “You can really sense it in both the kids and the coaches.”

While Duncan and his girls were working out their first-day butterflies, Law was in mid-season form in the boys gym, filling the room with energy and boisterous commentary.

The sounds of squeaking sneakers and bouncing balls filled up the gymnasiums at both LHS and Free State, and the other winter sports squads broke out the wrestling mats and swim caps, as well. Combine that with the crisp chill of the outside air and the early setting of the November sun, and it was quite clear that winter sports had arrived.