CIAC’s decision to cancel rest of postseason games stuns high schools
The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, in response to ongoing concerns regarding the coronavirus, made an unprecedented decision Tuesday when Executive Director Glenn Lungarini announced that all winter state tournament play has been canceled immediately.
The stunning move came during the boys’ and girls’ basketball and hockey tournaments, and a day before the boys’ swimming state championship meets were set to begin. CIAC championship competitions in cheerleading, gymnastics, indoor track and wrestling have been completed.
“Given the great variety of information that our districts are receiving from their local departments of health, and from declining resources of neutral site games, we feel that it’s important that the CIAC give direction to our schools regarding the logistics of athletics,” Lungarini said during a hastily called news conference Tuesday morning at the CIAC’s headquarters in Cheshire.
“Some districts have informed us that they can no longer participate in our tournaments,” he added during his opening statement. “Others have informed us that they can continue to participate without any fans in attendance. Still others have communicated that they can participate with less than 100 people in attendance. Additionally, we have been notified by several of our third-party and neutral site venues that they can no longer host our events.”
“After much consideration and consultation, the CIAC has made the difficult decision to cancel all remaining tournament games. We must
always place the health and safety of our student-athletes first,” he said.
One of those neutral site venues was Mohegan Sun Arena, which was scheduled to host 10 state championship basketball games on March 21 and 22.
“We respect the CIAC’s decision and are looking forward to hosting the high school basketball finals next year,” Mohegan Sun President of Sports and Entertainment Tom Cantone said.
The decision to halt play, particularly in basketball, sent shockwaves through school districts across southeastern Connecticut.
Old Lyme, for instance, had both its boys’ and girls’ basketball programs still in tournament. The boys were the top seed in Division V and a favorite to win a state championship after reaching the finals a year ago at Mohegan Sun.
“It just feels kind of surreal,” said senior Aedan Using, who received an alert about the cancellation via Twitter. “In most cases your season is ended by loss or by winning a championship, something tangible. All I have to prove that I’m never going to play basketball again in high school is a tweet on my phone.”
Old Lyme gathered for an informal practice, as did the Norwich Free Academy boys, whose head coach, Chris Guisti, said the Wildcats were looking forward to competing for a perfect season against stiff competition in Division I.
“We expected to practice today,” Guisti said. “We just found out around 11 a.m. the whole tournament was canceled. I thought it would have been way too drastic to cancel practice at that point . ... Are we holding out hope something miraculous happens at the 11th hour? Maybe. But at the end of the day, we’re not going to waste the opportunity and get together.
“What made this season special was the guys behind me who began preparing for this season in May when summer league started in East Hartford,” he said. “To not have that opportunity of knowing where you stack up, even if it ends in disappointment, just not knowing is going to be something that’s going to be hard for them. That’s who I feel for.”
NFA senior Nolan Molkenthin also expressed his frustration. “I almost wanted to leave school,” he said. “But it’s important to be together in times like this. We’re hoping the CIAC reconsiders. We’ll gladly play in a gym with 10 people and the coaches. We just want a chance.”
As concerns about the spread of the coronavirus continued to grow, most coaches felt the worst-case scenario was playing games in empty gymnasiums.
“I’m really just shocked,” Old Lyme boys’ coach Kirk Kaczor said. “I’m obviously just surprised that it happened. I thought maybe we’d have to play in front of no fans. I didn’t think there was any chance (the tournaments would be canceled).”
“Our goal is always to win the last game. For the seniors, for us, that’s the state final. Our last game was a win (the Shoreline Conference championship),” he said. “We’ll take that. There’s some consolation in that, but that wasn’t the ultimate goal.”
CIAC championship meets in diving were scheduled to begin Wednesday with qualifying for the class meets in the swimming events set for the weekend.
“I have 17 guys that made the class meet that are devastated,” said East Lyme coach Rob Bouchey, who also held an informal practice. “We just tried to put a positive spin on it right away. Hopefully they’ll remember that part. We just tried to talk about opportunities that continue to exist for student-athletes and tried to keep things in perspective. As they grow, sometimes life throws you a twist.”
“(There were) definitely a lot of emotions from our group,” he said. “We all had all of our preparation and training and focus on state championships that they won’t get to attempt.”
Lungarini said he expected and understood that there would be emotional reactions.
“It’s difficult to say to seniors and others that they won’t have the opportunity to finish these tournaments,” he said. “But we do believe it is what is in the best interest of all of our membership and the schools in Connecticut to have that directive from us.”