MA School Sports Play On Amid Coronavirus Spike

MASSACHUSETTS —Nearly two years after the Maynard High School girls basketball team beat Monson in the Division 4 state semifinals at a near-empty Worcester State gym in what would be the last sanctioned school sports event in the state for the first six months of the coronavirus crisis, there were ominous signs that another stoppage could be imminent.

Right before the winter break, Boston Public Schools suspended all games and practices amid the start of the omicron wave. When Wellesley High followed suit the next week, there were concerns that school sports and other extracurricular activities could get the quick hook from districts looking to do anything they could to keep classrooms open during the latest onslaught of infections.

Three weeks later, however, the mass cancellations and widespread season "pauses" have not materialized as threatened. Some games have been postponed here and there. Some leagues — such as the Greater Boston League — dialed things back for a week or so. Other leagues — such as the Dual County League — have gone back to limiting spectators at indoor games.

But most of the games have gone on with a recognition that taking away sports, theater and music once again would be taking an even greater toll on students who have now spent at least half of their time in high school learning under the weight of virus-related cancelations, postponements and restrictions.

"We are hoping that we are going to be able to maintain the activities for our students and families that we can safely provide," Beverly Superintendent Sue Charochak said as her district persevered through the first days of the new calendar year with 19 percent of high school students and 7 percent of staff absent. "It's been a long couple of years. So we hope we can do that for them moving forward."

A Measured Approach

When schools and leagues have called for a break, those breaks have generally been shorter and more targeted than they were, certainly, when the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association canceled the remainder of the basketball and hockey playoffs following the Maynard/Monson game on March 12, 2020, and even last winter when schools shut down sports for weeks at a time.

"Because now the shutdowns are between five and seven days, as opposed to a year ago when we just shut down everything for 14 days at a time, I don't think there is going to be a ton of people who are going to fall in the category of not being able to play half of your schedule," St. Mary's of Lynn Athletic Director Jeff Newhall said during an MIAA Basketball Committee meeting on Wednesday. "I think we're doing OK. I am thinking we're going to be doing a bit better as we move into the next week or two."

While the Basketball Committee had on its agenda revisiting some of the rules modifications that sports returned to last fall and winter, those were not considered at Wednesday's meeting.

"Those modifications that we spent months, or a year on, I don't think, in my opinion, we need to go backward at this point," Newhall said. "In some cases with capacity, specifically around spectators, I know there have been some leagues and some schools ... they're being handled at the local level.

"Even those plans are seven to 10 days and are being re-evaluated. I want to keep everyone as safe as possible but I don't think we should be reinstating any of those modifications or moving backward at this point."

Masks Still Part Of The Games

One precaution that is not going away anytime soon is masking when student-athletes are playing close-contact indoor sports like basketball. Although the Basketball Committee voted 15 to 3 to recommend to the MIAA Board of Directors that players actively in the games, as well as officials, be allowed to play mask-free, MIAA Executive Director Robert Baldwin said on Thursday that its member schools will continue to follow Department of Elementary and Secondary Education guidance that masks should be worn within school buildings.

"I attended a meeting (Wednesday) where an esteemed medical doctor said that the current surge is 20-fold higher than the first surge when COVID-19 began," Baldwin said in a statement. "This is not the time to be sending a mixed message regarding masking guidelines to our membership. DESE recently extended its mask requirement for all K-12 public schools in Massachusetts through Feb. 28, 2022, based upon the current omicron surge. It is the intent of the MIAA to stay the course as well."

Yet, while the games may still look a bit different than they did for most of the 2019-20 season, the important thing for most coaches and athletes is that the vast majority of those games are still being played heading toward the two-year anniversary of when everything came to a stop.

"In our league, we put the one-week halt in," Malden High Principal and former Peabody basketball coach Christ Mastrangelo said. "We only did the five days so I think it's going to be easy to make up those games.

"I know, certainly in Western Mass., it was longer and in Boston, the city just went to a second week (practices can resume in Boston city schools on Tuesday), so it's going to be more difficult for them. But the GBL only did the five days, so we're not overly concerned."