SPORTS ARE BACK
Summer workouts begin for some local squads
High school sports returned Wednesday, even if thing were a little different.
Several area athletic programs were able to start voluntary workouts this week after their respective school boards approved health and safety guidelines under a PIAA directive issued in June. More schools have plans to begin workouts next week while a few others are still in waiting.
For the teams that were able to get a couple sessions in before the July 4 holiday, it was just good to be back.
“It was awesome, we had about 75 kids and even with all the restrictions in place, you could tell they were pumped to be back,” Pennridge football coach Cody Muller said. “As coaches, it felt like being back for the first day of camp.”
The Rams opened their summer workouts with an early morning session Wednesday and had another session Thursday before taking the holiday weekend off and resuming next week. Pennridge boys’ soccer had its first group training Wednesday night, with coach Pete Valimont saying he had 48 athletes in attendance.
Upper Dublin, Souderton, Wissahickon and Upper Moreland were among other programs that started their offseason workouts this week. Upper Moreland, which has a three-tiered plan in place,
is not allowing teams inside the school building yet so girls’ basketball coach Matt Carroll had to improvise.
“Some of the girls I hadn’t seen since February and even our coaches, it’s guys you’re used to seeing six days a week in the season and you’ve seen them three times since the season ended,” Carroll said. “It was challenging, the school said nothing indoors so that meant no weight room and for us, no gym. So we found a local outdoor court and scheduled it early in the morning when nobody
would be there.”
The Golden Bears, who had 17 players at their first team workout, met at a small park in Hatboro with a pair of basketball courts. Aside from a short spell of light rain when they started, Carroll said the change in location didn’t deter any enthusiasm from his team.
“It’s been a while since you worry about doublerims on rocks laying on the court changing how the ball bounces but it was nice,” Carroll said. “We’re limited in things we can do, you’re worrying about things you never had to before but everyone is in the same boat. We’re lucky our school board and AD got us to this point because not everyone was able to start now.”
Pennridge’s teams also don’t have access to indoor facilities. For the football team, that means no helmets, no pads and no equipment for the moment. It also means no team lifting in the school weight room, so during the first stage of restart, the Rams are focusing on conditioning.
Even with a large group of 70-plus players, Muller said they were able to spread out pretty well across the turf at Helman Field and get in a pretty intense conditioning workout.
“We didn’t try to wear them out because they’ve been off for so long, it was more getting their feet wet,” Muller said. “Talking to guys at the end, a lot of them were gassed but the
good thing is, this is a starting point and it only gets better from there.”
The soccer team was able to break out some balls and cones to run passing drills on top of conditioning work and Valimont said he was pleased with the turnout especially given the coming holiday and the restrictions in place.
Upper Moreland’s roster is full of three-sport athletes, so getting any kind of workout with his team in the summer is vital for Carroll. Once August comes around and fall sports start preseason, the Bears’ fall athletes will turn their focus there.
“The summer is when we get our time and we get to meet the freshmen coming in and you try to find new
leaders with last year’s seniors departing,” Carroll said. “Aside from skill work, it’s getting to know each other, get a feel for the new dynamics. We try to get out as much as possible and as soon as possible.”
Abington and North Penn are among programs slated to begin voluntary workouts next week. Cheltenham’s initial safety plan was not approved by the district school board and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia has not approved a plan yet, meaning Philadelphia Catholic League schools like Archbishop Wood, Lansdale Catholic and La Salle cannot begin workouts.
Pennridge is also requiring athletes to bring their
own water and wear masks to and from the field. Muller said nobody is allowed on the field until the coaches give the go-ahead and players enter and exit one-byone.
“At the end of the day, you’re still dealing with high school kids,” Muller said. “They start to gravitate toward each other and you have to yell ‘social distancing’ or something to get them to spread out a little bit but for the most part, we tried to prepare them, give them a checklist and go over what we expected each day.
“There’s a lot of different pieces to this, but our kids did a good job of paying attention and taking care of it.”