By Summer Ward

January 29, 2021

Although fall sports managed to get through their seasons with COVID, winter sports are facing more struggles.

Fall sports had a rocky beginning, but once they got going they were in the clear. Winter sports have had to deal with the holiday season, eligibility and COVID spikes.

After the holiday season there was an extreme rise in COVID cases. Realistically, teens do not get a say in whether they attend gatherings with their parents, and athletes can’t control refs, coaches and other teams. 

The girls basketball team was recently quarantined because of a positive case from a ref from one of their games. 

Junior basketball player Maya Hubbard says, “It sucks not knowing how the team is going to look after these two weeks.”

Every kid had a clean slate for the fall season, allowing more kids than usual to play sports. Now since school is “back in” kids are having to manage their grades and their sports.  

Junior cheerleader Jasmine Sebastion says, “The stress of managing grades and playing a sport is a lot more than people think.”

The COVID spikes also have added pressure. The COVID numbers have been inconsistent from the beginning of November to now. These athletes have been taking a lot of stress day by day, never knowing what the rest of the season looks like. Sure, fall athletes had these struggles, but the numbers were pretty consistent all season.

These quarantines are also taking a toll on students’ grades. A lot of student athletes take high level classes. I know personally, when I got quarantined my grades took a major slip. It was extremely hard to recover because online school is not the same. 

All of this added pressure is a lot for student athletes to deal with. Junior swimmer Violet Omiatek said she has never dealt with this much stress in her life.

With winter sports being indoors in a time of projected COVID spikes, it’s no surprise that winter athletes have a tough game to play.