Bethlehem Area School District puts winter sports on hold until Jan. 11

The Freedom-Nazareth District 11 6A football title game is scheduled to be played Friday.

And, the Liberty-Freedom football game is still on for 1:30 p.m. Nov. 25.

But that battle between the Hurricanes and Patriots will be the last athletic event in the Bethlehem Area School District until Jan. 11.

In a release sent out Tuesday night, the district announced that winter sports activities will be put on hold for nearly two months.

“In response to recommendations from the Bethlehem Health Bureau and our health care partners at St. Luke’s University Health Network, the Bethlehem Area School District has made the difficult but necessary decision to suspend winter athletic activities,” the statement said. “This includes practices and competitions, effective [Friday] through Jan. 11.

“The Bethlehem Area School District will seek guidance from the Bethlehem Health Bureau and St. Luke’s University Health Network to reevaluate the status of its winter sports programming on or after Jan. 11.”

The one bit of good news for athletes is that the annual football game between the Hurricanes and Patriots will be played at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 25 at BASD Stadium.

However, the game will not look or sound like other Liberty-Freedom football games because bands and cheerleaders won’t be permitted to attend. The game will only include members of the team, essential staff, and some family members.

The game will be livestreamed on BASD-TV.

Bethlehem’s announcement came less than a week after the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference released its winter sports schedules, which limited competition to games in the county. Liberty and Freedom are in the Northampton County division, which also features Bethlehem Catholic, Easton, Nazareth and Northampton.

Girls and boys basketball games are set to begin Dec. 15, with each team playing the other divisional members three times each for 15 games. Swimming is also supposed to begin Dec. 15, with 10 meets scheduled, and wrestling is set to start Dec. 16, with 10 conference matches slated.

The EPC basketball season was set to close Feb. 9, wrestling Feb. 3 and swimming Jan. 28.

Freedom is the defending District 11 boys basketball 6A champion. The Patriots girls team was still alive in the 2019-20 PIAA playoffs when the tournament was shut down by COVID19 on March 12.

Practice in all winter sports are scheduled to start Friday.