Winter tournaments canceled

OHSAA also says spring sports remain indefinitely suspended

There was always hope that the winter sports tournaments indefinitely postponed by the spreading novel coronavirus would be resumed.

Hope disappeared on March 26.

The OHSAA has announced the cancellation of its winter sports championships that were indefinitely suspended earlier this month in an attempt to combat the spreading novel coronavirus.

The March 26 announcement ended the girls basketball, ice hockey and wrestling state tournaments that were hours from starting. The boys basketball tournament as halted in the regional round, one week from the start of its state tournament.

In a statement, OHSAA executive director Jerry Snodgrass said he and his organization are “devastated” that the tournaments will not be completed.

“But our priority is the safety of our student-athletes, coaches, communities and officials,” Snodgrass said in a written statement. “Governor Mike DeWine is asking all Ohioans to do everything they can to stop the spread of this virus. That request, along with our schools not being able to reopen for weeks, means that school sports cannot happen at this time. Even if our schools reopen this spring, it will be difficult to find facilities willing to host the tournaments. Most campuses are shut down until mid to late summer.

“We are already planning for ways that these studentathletes will be honored at next year’s state tournament,” Snodgrass said.

The 16 schools that qualified for the girls basketball state tournament and the four teams that qualified for the ice hockey state tournament will all receive state tournament programs. The 672 studentathletes who qualified for the wrestling state tournament will all receive a program, certificate and their weigh-in card.

These four winter state tournaments and a few events during World War 2 (1941-45) are the only sports cancellations in the history of the OHSAA, which was founded in 1907.

No state champions will be listed for these four sports in 2020. The OHSAA does not use state polls from the media or coaches associations to determine state champions.

Spring sports remain indefinitely postponed, but Jeff Cassella, athletic director at Mentor and a member of the OHSAA’s northeast district board, said “it doesn’t look good,” in regard to spring sports.

“I think (the OHSAA) will wait to see what the governor does in regard to the remaining school year,” Cassella said. “Obviously, you can’t have sports if you can’t have school. If there’s a way to do it, the OHSAA will have spring sports, but that window is shrinking every time we turn around.”

Few, if any, were surprised by the OHSAA’s announcement.

“Mick actually sent a group chat to the wrestlers, he must have been one of the first ones to see the tweet,” said Elyria wrestling coach Erik Burnett regarding his state-qualifying son, Mick.

“They’re all smart kids, they saw it coming to a degree. We’re all looking towards the future, which is what I’ve been trying to tell them. You can stand and jump up and down and get as mad as you want but in the end what good is going to do? You need to look for the future.”

Christopher Vondruska, head wrestling coach at Keystone, said he was prepared for the announcement, too.

“It doesn’t feel any different,” he said. “We’ve kind of already moved on to the next thing. I’m big on teaching my guys the Olympic style of wrestling and it’s sad to hear about the Olympics being postponed along with our freestyle and greco season possibly getting canceled, we’re kind of holding on for that. They’re still holding onto the state tournament but they’ve canceled all the events in April but I’d imagine that more events will be canceled as well.”

Elyria Catholic girls basketball coach Eric Rothgery was preparing his team for the Division III state tournament when things came to a halt.

“I’ve expected this all along,” he said of the postponement turning to cancellation. “I just didn’t see logistically how they could try to pull this together, especially with where we’re at now kind of in limbo with everything. It’s disappointing of course, but it was what we expected.”