Coupeville gunner Ty Hamilton splashes home a jumper. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Basketball is not cancelled, just postponed.
Again.
After meeting Tuesday, the Executive Board of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association announced its latest adjustment to the 2020-2021 athletic schedule.
With COVID-19 cases spiking statewide, and Governor Jay Inslee having recently issued restrictions which include athletes not practicing inside for at least the next four weeks, a December 28 start for basketball became more unlikely.
The WIAA confirmed that, opting to delay the start of hoops season to Feb. 1, 2021.
At that point, it will be almost a year since a Coupeville High School team in any sport has played a game.
The last time a CHS squad faced off with a rival school came Feb. 11, 2020, when the Wolf girls basketball squad lost a home playoff game to Meridian.
The pandemic kicked into high gear shortly afterwards, with spring sports cancelled in 2019, and fall sports postponed in recent months.
The plan is still to have three complete sports seasons for the 2020-2021 school year, if positive COVID-19 case numbers drop.
Under the latest plan, each season will last seven weeks and end with a “regional culminating event” in place of state tournaments.
Traditional winter sports, which for Coupeville is basketball, will start February 1 and end March 20.
After that, traditional fall sports (football, volleyball, cross country, boys tennis, girls and boys soccer) will go from March 15 to May 1.
Football teams, which have to have more practices than other sports before playing, will start March 8.
The traditional spring sports (softball, track and field, baseball, girls tennis) will close the school year, with practices beginning April 26 and the season ending June 12.
Once we hit those start dates, the ability to play will be decided by whether counties are reaching goals set by state health officials.
To play basketball, which, like football, is considered a “high risk” sport, schools have to be in counties that have less than 25 new cases per 100,000 people in a 14-day period, and less than 5% positive cases overall.
Also, 50% of schools in a WIAA region (by classification) must be eligible to participate in league games.
That means at least four of eight schools in the revamped Northwest 1B/2B League will have to be ready to go for basketball to begin.
With another delay to the start of actual play, the WIAA also voted Tuesday to extend the open coaching window to January 23.
That window, which has been extended twice now, allows coaches to work with student/athletes and have practices.
CHS, under the guidance of Athletic Director Willie Smith, has been holding carefully-monitored workouts for most of its sports programs.
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