Spring sports season at a standstill

Apr 5, 2020

Schools are shut down until at least May 4 and people are keeping their distance from each other to limit the spread of coronavirus, leaving the spring sports season at a standstill and giving high school coaches very few opportunities to adapt.

“It’s an extremely difficult situation,”  said Wareham High School girls tennis coach Geoff Swett. Because the high school and other facilities are closed, even if athletes wanted to play tennis, they would have nowhere to go.

The season hasn’t officially started yet, so Swett is not allowed to hold practice. Due to social distancing efforts, players have been discouraged from practicing with each other, even in small groups. 

Swett said that he is keeping in touch with players to give them the most up to date information, but he hasn’t asked them to do anything specific in terms of strength and conditioning or working on their tennis skills. Overall, he said that he trusts that his athletes will do what they can to stay in shape while home from school and sports.

Swett said that perhaps the only good news is that he has a very young team and most of his athletes will presumably be able to play in the years ahead. The team will graduate just one senior this year, and the other players are all freshmen and sophomores.

“It’s just a waiting game at this point,”  baseball coach Chris Cabe said. 

Without being able to hold practice, Cabe said his players are limited to what they can do at home. In addition to bodyweight training like pushups and situps, Cabe said he has developed a throwing program to keep players in shape and ready to “hit the ground running,” if and when the season finally starts. 

However, the throwing routines are limited by how much space players have in their backyards and if they have someone at home to catch for them.

Cabe’s team has five seniors, all of whom have played for the vikings since the eighth grade. 

With the season postponed, Cabe said the seniors might never be able to show their full potential on a high school baseball field. “That’s the biggest loss” for the team this season, he said.

Cabe said he is hoping that schools reopen on May 4 as planned. If that is the case, he said that the team would be allowed to compete after seven practice sessions, based on rules from the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association.