Practice start dates vary drastically among area schools

Bangor started the domino effect on Nov. 7 by pushing back the start date for winter sports practices until Dec. 1.

East Stroudsburg Area School District on Monday announced that it was going to virtual learning and postponing the start of winter sports practices until January due to rising COVID-19 cases.

Bethlehem Area School District followed a day later by announcing that its winter sports programs can not practice until January.

Strouds burg, Palmer ton, White hall and others followed. You see the trend.

Many area schools are scheduled to begin winter sports practices Friday, the first allowable date by the PIAA — the state’s governing body for high school athletics. Many are not.

The first allowable competition date is Friday, Dec. 11, but that will not happen for some. With all Monroe County schools delaying the start of practices, sports won’t happen there before January.

Eastern Pennsylvania Conference voted earlier this month to conduct regular-season competitions according to county, so Monroe County’ s blanket delay won’t directly affect those in Northampton and Lehigh counties.

But EPC schools in Northampton and Le high counties will alter their neighbors’ schedules because of their restrictions. The same in the Colonial League, which has schools in Bucks, Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties.

EPC announced last week that basketball will start Dec. 15, wrestling Dec. 16. The Colonial League start date for basketball is Dec .11, wrestling on Dec .12.

Those schedules, however, could become a shell of their former selves.

Palmer ton voted recently to goto remote learning with no sports as long it was all virtual. It will not return to school until Carbon County moves from substantial to moderate stage for three weeks in any fourweek period starting Jan .1. That means the Blue Bombers likely won’t be back on the courts and mats until February.

All sports programs must complete 15 days of preseason workouts before conducting its first competition.

The PIAA is attempting to waive the three-day rule for programs to return to competition after a shutdown of at least four days for any reason, but was unsuccessful during Wednesday’s monthly meeting.

PIAA Executive Director Bob Lombardi said he has attempted to get clarification from Gov. Tom Wolf and state Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine regarding the state’s most recent mask mandate, which require one be worn whenever one leaves his/her house.

The PIAA sports medicine advisory committee expressed concern about those in competition, especially swimming and wrestling. There are exceptions to the state guidelines, including pre-existing medical or mental health conditions, or causing a medical condition.

The PI A A passed are solution Wednesday brought by the wrestling advisory committee to reduce the number of entries in a postseason tournament to eight per weight class. The state individual event had 20-person brackets the last several years.

The PIAA also voted to approve four multiple-team dual tournaments per school for this season and limit all regular-season tournaments to single-day events.

This also is the first year in which the state will have 13 weight classes, down

one from previous seasons. And the 202021 season will be the first since Panther Valley voted to drop its wrestling program.

PI A A team dual competitions were not talked about during Wednesday’s PIAA meeting. It is unclear how those will be conducted. District 11 duals start at the end of January and the state tournament

the first week of February.

The EPC, as it did in the fall, will not have championship events in any of its winter sports.