New plan has basketball starting in February, with the hope that football can start in March
Once again, a delay of game has been called on high school sports.
The WIAA Executive Board voted Tuesday to amend the tentative sports schedule, moving the start of Season 2 to Feb. 1, 2021. Seasons 2, 3, and 4 will also be shortened, again.
And yes, as all associated with high school sports are accustomed to by now, this schedule will be flexible, as well.
The Season 2 sports, the traditional winter sports, were going to begin practice on Dec. 28, with the first contests to be played in the next week. Instead, the first day of practice is now set for Feb. 1. (Gymnastics will begin a week earlier, on Jan. 25.) Season 2 will end with a “regional culminating event” on March 20.
Season 3, which consists of the traditional fall sports, is set to begin practice on March 15, with a culminating event on May 1. Football is the exception in Season 3. Football will begin practice on March 8, with its culminating event scheduled for May 8. Football requires more practice days than other sports before competition can begin.
The traditional spring sports, Season 4 this academic year, will begin practice April 26 and conclude June 12.
The latest schedule can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRop6HNtm7WrTzJ_C9Xoy0YwF2iGmh5vXV4HjxpUflG5HexCU1eTv3CFkzQAmODD8Ogry3-PayYQzag/pubhtml
These changes to the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association schedule come “in light of surging COVID-19 cases around the state,” according to a press release.
Low-risk sports for Season 1 were made available by the WIAA to be played in September and October. No schools in Southwest Washington, and it is believed no schools in the state, held seasons for those sports. Instead, they were moved to other seasons.
The last WIAA-sanctioned sports to be played were boys and girls basketball, at the state tournaments last March.
The 2020 spring sports season was cancelled, and since then, tentative schedules for the 2020-21 academic year have been changed several times.
