Kylee Rostochak and her Wawasee girls golf teammates will look to repeat as Northern Lakes Conference tournament champions this Saturday at Meadow Valley. (Photo by Nick Goralczyk)

WARSAW – It’s a longtime tradition among those dug into the trenches of local athletics. “Man, this season is flying by!” We all say it, and can’t help ourselves. But in some regards, the season does fly by. Case in point, conference tournaments are already on the horizon, beginning this weekend with conference girls golf around the area, and next weekend – egads – sectionals for girls golf.

While the golf tournaments are the eye openers for those keeping score, this weekend happens to be a perfect storm of several invitationals and tournaments being hosted by local schools. And for several other programs, they taking part in tournaments and invites around the area.

Colton Lind and the Warsaw boys tennis team will host its tennis invite this Saturday. (Photo by Mike Deak)

The various conferences around the area will host their girls golf tourneys this Saturday in preparation to close up regular season ties ahead of next weekend’s state tournament series beginning.

The Northern Lakes Conference will begin Saturday at 8 a.m. at Meadow Valley Golf Club in Middlebury. Undefeated season champion NorthWood will look to claim the title outright, with one-loss Wawasee right on their heels.

The Three Rivers Conference and newly-formed Hoosier North Athletic Conference will also tee off Saturday morning, both scheduled for 9 a.m. openers. Whitko and Tippecanoe Valley will work in the TRC at Norwood Golf Club in Huntington while Triton will be among the fun at Chesapeake Golf Club for the inaugural HNAC.

Warsaw will have two home invitationals going Saturday morning. The Warsaw Tiger Tennis Invite will feature some top-notch programs including Crown Point, Fishers, Munster and South Bend St. Joseph’s among the eight teams in the field. The blind-draw start will have a cascading bracket for first through eighth place. Play begins at 9 a.m. and should feature some fantastic matchups of teams primed for legit state runs.

Columbia City’s Lauren Keller and Tippecanoe Valley’s Karly Kitch both will be active this Saturday at the Tippecanoe Valley Cross Country Invite. (Photo by Mike Deak)

The Lady Tiger freshman volleyball team will host its tournament with some big program names heading into the Tiger Den. Warsaw’s pool will include games against Huntington North, Homstead and South Bend St. Joseph’s. Warsaw’s JV volleyball team will also be playing at the Michigan City Invite.

Triton will host a five-team Triton Volleyball Invite Saturday. Each of the teams will play each other in round robin games at both the high school and elementary school courts starting at 8:30 a.m. Triton, Argos, Culver, Glenn and LaVille will all play each other, trying to compile the best win/loss mark. Tiebreakers for even records will go to one final head-to-head match to settle the champion.

Tippecanoe Valley will host the Tippecanoe Valley Cross Country Invitational Saturday morning at the high school. In a full morning of running, the junior high boys and girls teams from around the area will run beginning with the girls race at 9 a.m. The high school girls will run at 10 a.m., the high school varsity boys at 10:30 a.m., and the high school JV boys at 11 a.m. There will be a coaches/alumni 3K taking place at 11:30 a.m. and awards are scheduled for noon.

A full compliment of area high school teams for the Valley invites include LCA, Manchester, Bremen, Rochester, Valley, Triton, West Noble and Whitko among others. Junior high teams also feature area teams like LCA, Valley, Triton and Whitko.

LCA will also be in action at the Lancer Cup, a sizable soccer showcase at Newton Park. Play runs all day in the competitive soccer tournament.