The Fall II season has finally arrived in Massachusetts. Sports that were postponed from either the fall or winter seasons can now be contested, if individual schools decide to opt in and participate. For some schools, practices can start right away, while others must be within guidelines of the Massachusetts COVID-19 state metric.
“We’re hoping that we can stay in the yellow of that state grid,” Holyoke athletic director Melanie Martin said. “Once we stay in the yellow for two weeks, we can start practices and when we hit three weeks, we can have competitions.”
While Holyoke waits, Easthampton began practices for Fall II this week, but the school will have to wait for the city’s COVID cases to go down to begin competitions.
“We need our COVID cases to be seven or below for every 100,000 people,” Easthampton AD Brian Miller said. “Right now, we are a little above that but when it goes down, we can play teams that are under that same level.”
Many high schools in Massachusetts are trending in the right direction toward having a normal athletic season. The city of Northampton lifted its high-risk sports ban Monday, and the Blue Devils will compete in football, basketball, swimming and diving and indoor track and field.
Different schools throughout the region are participating in different sports, depending on what they were or weren’t able to contest during the previous two seasons. Sports like basketball will be heavily regulated due to the indoor element and close in-person contact involved in the game.
Practices for basketball are also changing, and Miller said that Easthampton is cutting back from six practices per week to five. The school is also reducing practice length from two hours to 90 minutes.
Many schools that have reached the necessary threshold for COVID cases are being put into geographic bubbles so that teams do not have to travel as far. Miller said that Easthampton, which has had a steady, but slower decline in cases, will most likely not be able to compete within a bubble.
“We’ll definitely have to adjust with that,” said Miller. “We’re going to have to find teams that are outside the bubble.”
Holyoke’s biggest challenge is running right into competitions after becoming a yellow city, according to the state’s COVID grid. Many coaches have devised new methods to keep players active during the downtime.
“We had coaches doing Zoom workouts starting in January,” Martin said. “We haven’t had athletics since last October, so I knew we had to do something to keep the kids active.”
At Easthampton, the basketball programs could only practice during the winter. Like Northampton’s football protest late last month at city hall, Easthampton athletes voiced their concerns.
“We had a number of students that came to the school committee meeting and spoke about how much basketball meant to them,” said Miller.
Similar to Northampton, the Easthampton School Committee revisited the decision on basketball competition and lifted the ban on Feb. 23.
“It was so great to see our students being active and wanting to have their voices heard,” Miller said.
Around Hampshire County, Hampshire Regional and Granby canceled most winter sports, but both schools received approved from their school committees to compete in Fall II.
Hampshire did participate in both alpine skiing and Nordic skiing during the winter, the latter in a co-op program with Mohawk Trail Regional. Their basketball teams received the first sign of approval from their school committee to practice on Dec. 21, though games were not included in that approval. The teams collectively decided to postpone practicing to gather information on what was happening with other schools that were competing.
“After six weeks of other schools competing and no reported incidents of virus transmission, our basketball teams held tryouts and started practicing twice a week in hopes the school committee would change their stance,” Hampshire Regional AD John Plourd said last week. “On Feb. 23, the school committee approved competition in the Fall 2 season. We have hopes of competing against Belchertown, Gateway, Holyoke, Monson, Southwick, and St. Mary’s. Granby and Sabis are possible opponents depending on how their schools vote.”
Hampshire students will also have the chance to participate in indoor track & field in the upcoming Fall II season, as well as swimming and diving and football through co-ops with Easthampton.
“The biggest challenge has been and continues to be, how drastically things can change … sometimes in a matter of minutes,” Plourd said. “Communicating with players, coaches, families, administration, other schools, event staff, officials and the community is challenging under normal conditions but there’s added pressure when things can change in a moment’s notice. It has a feeling almost as if we’re constantly on the verge of inclement weather and seconds away from having to postpone, shift or cancel plans.”
Despite the challenges COVID brings to future adjustments, Plourd said there are always positives associated with the situation.
“The thing we’re looking forward to the most is having the opportunity to compete,” he said. “Several of our students spoke [last week] at our school committee meeting and referenced how their worlds can feel almost normal when playing sports. At this point, the athletes aren’t looking for anything extraordinary. Normal has been somewhat unobtainable, particularly this winter, but there’s a feeling that we may get a taste of it in the Fall II season. That’s all we’re asking for.”
Unlike Hampshire Regional, Granby is only allowing practice for boys (March 3) and girls basketball (March 1), as well as cross country. Those will take place outside as part of a series of modifications unanimously approved by the school committee Feb. 16.
“It’s really a cool opportunity for our athletes,” Granby AD Alison Jordan-Gagner said. “It will be a nice opportunity for our students to get outside and train themselves in preparation for next season.”
Belchertown will sponsor boys and girls basketball as well as football this season after not competing during the winter. Gateway Regional also moved its basketball season to Fall II.
Amherst Regional, Frontier Regional and South Hadley participated in the winter season but shifted some sports to Fall II. The Hurricanes will have football, swimming and diving and indoor track and field, while the Tigers are sponsoring football, girls volleyball and indoor track and field. Frontier’s defending state champion volleyball team will return in Fall II along with football and soccer.
Smith Academy hasn’t allowed sports all year but will compete in boys and girls soccer.
Smith Vocational won’t have any Fall II sports.
Football games won’t start until the weekend of March 19, while other sports should begin sooner.