Team quarantines result in schedule problems

Team quarantines result in schedule problems

Catherine Rose | staff writer

Athletic event cancellations during a regular season can cause problems for coaches and athletic directors, but this year, with a global pandemic, cancellations — because a team quarantines — has created a difficult situation for everyone involved.

"The state restrictions have really just made the planning and preparing a lot harder and has created twice the amount of work for a lot of people, but as far as the actually playing of the sport and scheduling, there hasn’t been a lot of issues,” Athletic Director Jamie Lowry said.

For example, if a team quarantines and cancels the game, athletic teams would have to wait until a game can be scheduled. When having to reschedule a game, athletic directors and coaches look for other schools that their opponent cancels for the same reason. When having to play a different school than originally scheduled, the change could cause even more issues if only the available school to play is located three hours away or is three times SHS’ enrollment.

“Austin got canceled due to the Coronavirus and so did Silver Creek. All we have to do to make them up is to try to reschedule them, and since both of those are two teams that are our county rival and in our conference, we just found another day to reschedule them,” said Alex Johnson, girls volleyball assistant coach.

Despite the changes in scheduling, the volleyball team has managed to keep a positive attitude toward the delays in game play due to teams having to quarantine.

“We’re fine. It was honestly upsetting to cancel the Austin game at first, but we’ve rescheduled the games that got canceled,” said Ella Siekman, a sophomore volleyball player. “So, we’re all pretty excited about that. It was nice to have more time to practice to be better prepared for the games that are coming up.”