Opportunity knocks again for spring play
Long road back to competition nearly complete for spring athletes
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of four pieces looking at the last 12 months for high school sports since COVID-19 first impacted the state.
June 15, 2019, was a day Matt Petry will never forget.
The Orchard Lake St. Mary’s baseball coach had just watched his Eaglets win the Division 2 state championship with an 8-1 victory over Grand Rapids Catholic Central.
That young 2019 Eaglets team was expected to be a top contender for the 2020 state championship as well, but that opportunity never came about.
Last March, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the world and put a stop to the 2020 spring season for high school sports before it could ever begin.
“You just think about the loss of opportunities for the kids, specifically the class of 2020 seniors – guys that have worked their whole careers to play themselves into starting roles and opportunities to see the field,” Petry said. “We were supposed to have a pretty good team last year. So you feel for the kids not being able to defend their state title. But you know, you certainly understand, at the time, that decision that was made to postpone the season and ultimately cancel it.”
Now, as first competitions for the 2021 spring season are scheduled for March 26, it will have been 650 days between MHSAA spring sporting events.
Though all seasons have been impacted in some way over the last 12 months, none more than spring athletes.
That’s why the 2021 season is likely to be unlike anything we’ve experienced in the past.
“It’s certainly going to be different,” Milford track coach Chris Ceresa said of the upcoming season. “We’ve always tried to teach track and field as a great opportunity to have fun and learn something different, become healthy and appreciate the challenge. I think this year, we will be emphasizing more and more, having as much fun with it as you can, and experiencing that, to whatever level you can take it to, because we know now, you never know when you won’t have that opportunity again.”
WRITING ON THE WALL
Spring teams weren’t in competition yet when the MHSAA put a stop to all athletics on March 12, 2020, but they were in the early stages of preparing for the upcoming season.
Ceresa retired as Milford’s athletic director in 2017, but continued to coach track.
Spending his winters in Arizona, Ceresa had been back in Michigan for one day when his 2020 spring season was put to a stop.
“It was horrible. In fact, I only made one day of practice. I flew in from Arizona. We had our first day of practice, and then that night, the school district closed down. And then we didn’t see the kids again. I mean, it was over. So I only saw the kids one day last year,” he said.
Originally just a pause, there was some hope that spring sports would still hold a season after a short break to try and deal with COVID-19.
“I was fairly optimistic that we’d figure this out. And we would be able to overcome it some place, some time. In the beginning, I really was convinced that we would get through it,” Ceresa said. “As weeks passed by, I became less optimistic, obviously. I guess once we didn’t come back after spring break last year, I was pretty convinced that it was going to be over.”
On April 3, the MHSAA would officially pull the plug on any 2020 spring season, leaving coaches and athletes in shock.
“I was thinking it would be a month at most, I thought it would be a delay type situation,” Petry said. “Not knowing the gravity of the virus at the time, I thought it would just be like what they were saying on TV, two weeks to slow to spread. Maybe it gets extended another few weeks, but, a year later, I never would have imagined that we would still be dealing with it.”
WHAT WAS LOST
While the winter was cheated out of a finish in certain sports, all spring athletes were cheated out of everything.
Oakland County was set to have a number of championship contenders in 2020, from teams to individuals.
Walled Lake Northern’s softball team has been a top contender in the Lakes Valley Conference since it started and the Knights had a senior-heavy squad returning in 2020.
“We just all had really big expectations,” Northern softball coach Kristen Woodward said. “I missed the daily interaction and practices and games, and just the memories that would have been created throughout the season. Also, just seeing the girls achieve their goals or do really well and be successful, and just that genuine happiness from them.”
For the coaches, the lack of in-person contact with their athletes was what was most challenging.
“The hardest thing, for me, was the physical presence. I can be having a terrible day, right? The minute I’m on campus, and the minute I have a conversation with one of these guys, it changes,” Clarkston lacrosse coach Brian Kaminskas said. “So, from a physical presence standpoint, just not being able to talk to them and see them and hear them and smile, that was really hard. All the drills and schemes, and all that stuff, I really didn’t care about that. I just missed being around the team and the guys.”
Aside from the emotional toll, the impact was felt for many athletes in terms of having an opportunity to further their athletic careers.
Spring athletes in the Class of 2020 that hadn’t earned a college opportunity were still working toward their final season to prove they could compete at the next level.
“There’s a lot of non-D1 one schools that will go into the spring, and they’ll even go into the early summer, still trying to recruit kids. That obviously just got completely washed away (last spring),” Kaminskas said. “We had a couple of kids that I think would have benefited from the spring season if they wanted to play in college.”
FALL BALL
As fall prep sports were able to begin in September, the MHSAA offered up 16 dates of organized practice for spring sports teams during late September and early October.
“The fall was nice. I mean, they threw us a bone,” Kaminskas said. “To be out there, physically, I think there was, and I hate to use the word because it’s overused, but a sense of normalcy. There was a little light that let the guys know that, this is going to end, we are going to move on, things are going to get better.”
While it was still a far cry from a missed 2020 season, it did allow coaches to get to work with some athletes that they hadn’t had much time with over the last 18 months. The overall positive feedback from the 16day allowance has many spring coaches hoping that it could become a permanent part of the high school sports calendar.
“That’s something I would love to see continued, even in a post-COVID era, is allowing spring sports to have those fall dates of practice. I know the coaches association would like to see it. I’m sure the MHSAA has concerns, just with multisport athletes and things like that, but I know the coaches association would like to at least have a conversation about it,” Petry said. “Even if it’s getting together once a week on a Saturday for intrasquad scrimmages or practice or something like that, I think a lot of coaches that I’ve talked to want to continue taking advantage of that.”
CHANGES AHEAD
With winter sports now into its last leg of the regular season, spring sports appears on track to get started with practices on March 22, while competitions can begin on March 26.
The overall season will be losing a week, as original plans called for a March 15 start to practices.
“I definitely don’t think I’ll have enough time to prepare. But nobody else will either,” Woodward said of being ready for games by March 26. “I think it’s going to be a time crunch for sure. We have that one week before, and then we have a spring break, and then a week after we’re going to have to start playing. So, I will just have to prioritize what we need to cover to be ready for that first game.”
Along with the time constraints, the MHSAA will be coming out with any policy changes for sports on March 15. Those will include any changes to how games will be conducted in order to maintain health and safety protocols required to avoid the spread of COVID-19.
In a sport such as lacrosse, many club events around the Midwest eliminated faceoffs last summer, which is a big part of the sport. Other sports like track, are likely to have team and entry constraints placed on meets, which could limit competition opportunities for larger track programs.
In sports like baseball and softball, there will be more attention to detail when it comes to the handling of the balls in play.
“There will be a lot looking at pitchers blowing on their hands on a cold day, or licking their fingers and then wiping it off on the ball. That is going to be heavily enforced this year,” Petry said. “You’re not allowed to go to your mouth at all. If you do, the ball has to be thrown out of play, it has to be sanitized, things like that.”
Despite the bumps in the road that still may be ahead, the big thing for all the coaches and athletes is that they will be back in action.
The importance for the kids to be together and competing again is what the bottom line has been about since last March.
“I’m completely sold on the value of educational athletics, not because I’m supposed to be, but because of what I’ve experienced in my lifetime, and what I’ve watched other kids experience in their lifetimes,” Ceresa said. “The socialization and the learning how to be a better person, and how to problem solve through athletics is one of the components of education, I really feel bad for the kids for missing that. To be able to get back to competing this spring, I just hope we all can take a second to appreciate the opportunity to be doing what we love again. We will have to deal with changes on the fly, and probably some frustrations along the way, but it’s nothing we can’t overcome. The most important thing is that we are creating a positive experience for the kids again.”