Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
RENTON – The pandemic has struck another blow to local athletics. The WIAA voted to delay the start of winter sports to Feb. 1, 2021 and shorten each sports season to seven weeks apiece at its Nov. 17 meeting.
Practices for winter sports season, the most prominent of which are basketball and wrestling, were originally scheduled to begin Dec. 28, with competitions coming shortly after. However, a surge of positive COVID-19 cases caused the WIAA to create another delay in an already compressed 2020-21 schedule.
"The decision comes in light of surging COVID-19 cases around the state, putting in jeopardy the ability to begin WIAA Season 2 which was scheduled to begin on December 28," a release from the WIAA said.
Winter sports will end on March 20 with a "regional culminating event," indicating there will be no state championships this year. The WIAA divided its schools into three regions at the beginning of December, with Districts 5-9 falling into "Region C." All Eastern Washington schools in the WIAA, including those in Lincoln, Spokane, Adams and Whitman counties, are in one of these districts.
The "culminating event" will be a "final four" tournament within each region for each sport, according to an earlier release from the WIAA.
Traditional fall sports, like football, girl's soccer, volleyball and cross country will be pushed to a practice start date of March 15. Football practices start a week earlier, March 8, and begin competition March 19. Fall sports season, or "Season 3," according to the WIAA, ends May 1.
Spring sports, like track and field, baseball and fastpitch softball, will now start practices April 26. The season ends June 12.
The WIAA noted that it may continue to adjust schedules to certain sports if less than 50% of schools in a league are unable to meet Department of Health-mandated guidelines to participate.
In the Bi-County 2B league of 11 schools, including Davenport, Reardan, Asotin, Colfax and Lind-Ritzville-Sprague-Washtucna-Kahlotus, at least six would have to meet the health benchmarks for a sport to commence.
In the Northeast 1B league, including Odessa, Wellpinit, Almira Coulee Hartline and Wilbur-Creston, seven of the 13 teams would have to do so, according to this guideline.
Most local schools would not have met the benchmark for a basketball or wrestling season if it had begun Dec. 28. Both sports are considered high-risk for virus transmission, and local school districts must be in a county that has fewer than 25 positive COVID-19 tests per 100,000 people over a 14-day period to play high-risk sports.
For Lincoln County, a county with a population closer to 11,000, that means any more than 2.5 positive tests in the whole county would put sports competition readiness in jeopardy. The county website's COVID-19 dashboard has reported 39 positive cases in the county over the last 14 days.
The county has reported 123 total COVID-19 cases, with four hospitalizations and two deaths.
Many schools have been holding after-school practices, as the WIAA extended its open coaching period through this fall. The WIAA elected to extend this further, to Jan. 23, shortly before winter sports are now scheduled to commence.
However, recent mandates from Gov. Jay Inslee will create new restrictions on what those practices can look like...for now, at least through Dec. 14, when Inslee's current four-week mandate is scheduled to end.
No indoor sports practices will be allowed. All after-school practices must be held outdoors, and all athletes must wear a mask. Previously, outdoor sports athletes could remove their masks in some scenarios, but that flexibility is gone.
Low and moderate risk sports, like baseball, softball, cross country, track & field and soccer, may hold intra-squad scrimmages. High risk sports, like football, are still limited to pods of six or less.
Davenport athletic director Tim Zeiler said the school won't mandate any outdoor after-school practices, but will give those outdoor coaches the option of holding those practices according to safety guidelines.
"We're going to ride out these four weeks," Zeiler said. "Hopefully we can (then) give basketball and wrestling athletes a chance to practice."
Indoor facilities are currently locked down in Davenport, except for the school day. Zeiler said coaches are working virtually with their athletes right now.
"They're keeping in contact, which is good," he said.
Zeiler said the school "compliments" the WIAA for thinking outside the box and getting creative with this year's sports schedule.
"We can only hope these (COVID-19) numbers go down and we can get these kids that true high school experience we all had," he said.
Odessa athletic director Bruce Todd didn't know how Tiger athletics would proceed during the extended open coaching period, but is meeting with head coaches on Nov. 19 to discuss further.
He said he wishes that decisions could be made on a county-by-county or region-by-region basis.
"I don't want the state website telling us what we can do over here when our numbers are a lot lower," Todd said.
He noted that he feels the WIAA is doing the best it can given the circumstances.
Reardan co-athletic director Brian Graham said the school is likely shutting down all practices for after-school sports. Indoor after-school activities will be a no-go through Inslee's mandate.
"If restrictions ease in December, we'll definitely be doing basketball and wrestling practices," Graham said.
Outdoor practices will be weather dependent, though Graham predicted those will be in short supply.
"We'll do something if we have a good stretch of weather, but it's mid-November," Graham said. "We're supposed to be inside right now."
He expressed frustration with the situation and said athletes should be playing sports right now.
"There's no reason we can't be playing right now," Graham said. "We should be playing basketball right now and we should've been playing volleyball and football in the fall. But it's out of our control."
While Inslee's mandate is set to expire Dec. 14, he has often extended coronavirus-related mandates if he views it necessary to curb the virus.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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