The high school fall sports season has been put to bed.

There was a time most of us wondered if it would ever get started.

Our sports pages sang the praises of our respective Players of the Year in recent days — Seneca Valley’s Sarah White in volleyball, Mars’ Ellie Coffield and Dane Beller in girls and boys soccer, respectively.

Only slightly under the radar from those standout players are numerous others who persevered through the uncertainty of COVID to complete highly productive seasons for their respective teams.

Gracie Dunaway scored 22 goals and had 10 assists while Caroline Wroblewski tallied 20 goals and 15 assists for the Mars girls. If Coffield wasn’t there, either of those two could have been Girls Soccer Player of the Year.

Karns City has a highly productive girls soccer duo in McKenna Martin and Emma Dailey — and they are only sophomores. Martin had 24 goals and 11 assists, Dailey 18 goals and 13 assists.

It’s not out of the question that one — or both — could have a Player of the Year season before their high school careers are over.

North Catholic’s girls soccer team went to the state finals this year. Jayden Sharpless netted 20 goals for the Trojanettes. And how about Slippery Rock’s Amanda Lewis, who found the net 26 times for the Rockets.

In boys soccer, Karns City’s Dakota King scored 26 goals as the Gremlins won the district title. Butler’s Landon Mohney scored 17 goals and was clearly the leader of an outstanding Golden Tornado team.

While Beller was a no-brainer as Boys Soccer Player of the Year, Mars teammates Tyler Nymberg (15 goals, 16 assists) and Nabil Lahlou (15-19) were highly productive.

In volleyball, Andrea Meals of A-C Valley was all over the court, tallying 153 kills and 171 digs. Butler’s Sophia Lucas and Mars’ Beth Long set their respective school records for career digs this season.

Slippery Rock sophomore Virginia Recchia had 272 assists and 239 digs. The North Catholic duo of Elizabeth and Allison Feczko had 227 digs and 273 kills, respectively.

The point of all this is to illustrate what an accomplishment it is to be named Player of the Year in any region, district or county.

As impressive as the statistics listed above are, our Eagle sports staff had no problem coming up with our three winners. White, Coffield and Beller were obvious choices.

That’s because they were that great.

They had to be.

The players they were chosen over were very, very good.

Fall sports beat the virus.

Now we can only hope winter sports can do the same.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle