Updated Jesuit Sports Calendar 20-21
Screenshot taken of the OSAA website by Kavish Siddhartha
The revised 2020-2021 OSAA sports activities calendar
The OSAA recently announced on December 7th that they have adopted a new calendar for the fall, winter, and spring sports seasons amidst COVID-19 concerns. The total duration of each season is 6 weeks which includes the initial first week of practices before official games. One of the biggest reasons for the updated calendar is that all sports have the time and potential for COVID-19 cases to lessen which means less strict guidelines.
“Today’s decision by the Executive Board is another reminder of the impact the pandemic has had on Oregon students and schools,” said Peter Weber, OSAA Executive Director vía the OSAA media release. “While disappointed that we need to adjust our original schedule, we believe that keeping three distinct seasons, albeit in shortened seasons, maintains potential opportunities for all students moving forward.”
Season 2(Fall sports)
The fall sports season, which includes cross country, soccer, volleyball, and football will begin in February. With fall sports starting in February, there is added time for case counts to decrease and for certain counties to move out of the Extreme Risk category. According to the OSAA’s media release, outdoor sports such as soccer and cross country have been greenlit by the governor’s office due to the small likelihood of contracting the virus outdoors. Volleyball is tied to the governor’s county risk level guidance in counties deemed as lower, moderate, or high risk due to the sport being played indoors. At this time, football’s plausibility seems uncertain as it remains on the governor’s list of prohibited activities. While many have proposed the possibility of football moving into later into the year to allow for more COVID-19 cases to die down, the OSAA Sports Medicine Advisory Committee (SMAC) voiced that those theories are not supported due to close scheduling conflicts of the 2021 football season.
“In terms of a successful season, I think the OSAA is doing the very best they can given the circumstances,” Junior Tyler Fitts said. “The shortened seasons and overlapping schedules make it difficult for multi-season athletes, but at least we have a decision regarding sports than if all sports were cancelled.”
Season 3(spring sports)
Season 3 features all regular sports and activities (baseball, softball, golf, tennis, and track and field), all which have been permitted by state guidance as all spring sports are outdoor activities. Season 3 will begin on April 5th and extend into roughly the third week of May. Due to close scheduling, potential challenges may arise for athletes who play sports in the spring and winter season because winter practices start during the final week of games for spring season.
“I am mostly disappointed in the new calendar because I play football, baseball, and I ski,” Junior Hayden Smith said. “The overlap between skiing and baseball is six weeks with preseason workouts, which feels tough to manage. Since the seasons are so close together I had to cut out football to make time for ski racing and baseball.”
Season 4(winter sports)
The Jesuit 2020-21 sports season concludes with the winter sports season which includes traditional winter sports (swimming,wrestling, and basketball). The winter season starts in the middle of May and concludes in late June. While Jesuit does not have a wrestling team, moving a high contact sport like basketball to the very end of the year increases the possibility of a basketball season. Currently, OSAA has prohibited basketball, but with nearly a half year until the winter season starts, a change remains hopeful.
Other OSAA activities
Many other school activities have been revised in order for the school to regulate guidelines. These activities include speech, solo music, dance/drill, cheerleading, choir, and band/orchestra. Activities such as choir and band/orchestra have been moved towards the end of the year to allow for a possibility of each performing in person. Other activities like cheer and dance have been moved later in the year to allow for possible outdoor practices. There is no definite season for these activities, but rules allowing, most of these activities should start in April.
Jesuit High School is also holding pre-season workouts to prepare students for the sports season. All pre-season workouts are optional, but since many pre-season workouts begin a week before games, they are highly encouraged.
Jesuit administration recently sent out a school-wide email that provides further details on all aspects of each season and each sport. The OSAA website also provides the official calendar for the 2020-2021 sports season while detailing the safety of each season in their media statement.
Kavish Siddhartha is a staff writer for the Jesuit Chronicle. Kavish is a junior at Jesuit High School and has been interested in journalism since a young...
Guidelines for sports: what’s happening?
Sword Fern
An empty high school track and field and football stadium. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en No changes were made to the following photo.
With the adjusting style of the new hybrid online learning, Jesuit High School has created fall sports practices as a stress-free and inviting environment to meet friends and get exercise in order to bring the community together. This fall, 657 athletes have participated in practices in 18 different sports throughout nine weeks. Instead of sports teams meeting during all weekdays like the regular school year, the new format has most sports only meeting twice a week due to the fact that league games aren’t being played.
“The primary goal of the fall was social and emotional and community health,” Athletic Director Mike Hughes said. “It was to get students to be together as a community and to have fun together with their friends while exercising.”
The new safety guidelines implemented includes coaches and staff taking the temperature of all athletes, athletes wearing masks at all times, and requiring athletes to complete a basic health check for symptoms. With many sports having to use a singular ball, numerous sports went extra lengths to constantly clean their balls with alcohol spray and wipes during water breaks and timeouts.
“We had to follow the guidelines put on place by the state which meant in order to stay COVID free, we had to wear masks at all times, stay as socially distant as possible, and keep our bags at least 6 feet apart from each other,” varsity soccer player Landon Azavedo said.
Throughout the entirety of fall practices, there was only one athlete in a sport who came to practice exposed with the virus. The student came to one practice with the virus, but fortunately, there was no further spread. Jesuit was prepared for such precautions and took immediate protocol to addressing the situation. The main protocol for potential COVID exposure is to be as transparent as possible to the parents and the athletes. Jesuit notified everybody who attended the practice and cancelled the practice for the next two weeks. While there was some concern for a few athletes who seemed to have symptoms, all tests came back negative, and Jesuit remained vocal and transparent by letting families know that members of the team were being tested for the virus.
“We went throughout the entire fall with no COVID spread to anybody,” Hughes said.
The protocols of wearing masks, socially distancing, and taking temperatures were a success, leaving fall practices a completely safe environment.
The OSAA has also created a new calendar for each sports season: season two – the winter sports season which will roughly be from January to February, season three – the fall sports season, which will roughly be from March to April, and season 4 – the spring sports season, which will roughly be from May to June.
In the next few paragraphs, Mr. Hughes also offered some insights about his predictions for the schedule of the 2020/21 Jesuit sports year.
Predictions for the Spring/Fall season
“I am very confident about the fall and spring sports seasons happening,”Hughes said. “Right now, we could potentially play a scrimmage soccer game, tennis game, or a baseball game against another school. And If it’s allowed now, I have to think it’s going to be allowed in May.”
With the expected timeline of the fall and spring sports seasons to start in March, sports that can be modified to COVID guidelines like soccer and volleyball should have a good chance of starting on time.
“I think in March, we will be able to play soccer, volleyball, and certainly cross country,” Hughes said.
Other fall sports like football and lacrosse face an uphill battle due to the closeness of the players and with both sports being contact sports.
“Winter” Sports
Likewise, other winter sports, like basketball, remain complicated due to increasing COVID cases. Practices for basketball are supposed to begin on December 28, so one plausible option being discussed is to move the basketball season into the spring sports season, which is roughly around May, allowing for more time for COVID to die down. With sports such a basketball facing unlikely odds to start in January, the better option might be to change the season rather than to cancel. This could be a potential hardship for students who play both basketball and a spring sport, but one sport is better than none.
Taking a different approach than rescheduling, swimming is an example of a winter sport that could start off virtual. Jesuit is trying to rent some private pools for the swim team in which the team would hopefully be able to train and time themselves and compare against other schools in a virtual competition.
While sports like basketball and swimming might face some difficulty starting on time, a winter sport like ski racing has a large plausibility to practice on schedule due to the fact that the skiers are already wearing masks and gloves and they’re racing one at a time.
While Mr. Hughes is confident that many sports can be played in the latter part of the second semester, all of these decisions are made by the governor, the Oregon Health Authority, and the OSAA.
On December 7th, the OSAA is conducting a meeting about the fate of winter sports. The executive board of the OSAA will make the impending decision about if the winter season will be held on schedule or if any sports will be shifted to different seasons. To learn more about the upcoming decisions about winter sports, you can check out the OSAA website for more information. There will also be more information on the athletic page of the Jesuit website after OSAA has come to a decision on December 7th, and Jesuit High School plans to send out a school-wide email a few days after the decision. If the new calendar and guidelines are still confirmed after December 7, Jesuit High School should have a promising and exciting year for sports.
Kavish Siddhartha is a staff writer for the Jesuit Chronicle. Kavish is a junior at Jesuit High School and has been interested in journalism since a young...
Soccer and Volleyball: back-to-back titles
Courtesy Google Images
Back-to-back state titles
State championships are a big deal at any school, as they reflect a
team’s skill and dedication. While back-to back state championships are not unheard of at Jesuit, they certainly are not common. Recently, two Jesuit teams have won back-to-back state championships: women’s volleyball and women’s soccer.
The women’s soccer team is known for being premier, but their three consecutive state championships are not just from luck. Every day this season, this team worked hard and pushed each other to get better. With some significant players graduating last year, the team knew this season would be different.
“Coming into the season we were pretty confident we could do really well,” head coach Steve Fennah said. “But we knew it was a new team, with new personalities, and new leadership roles. So, there was a great deal of apprehension but also a great deal of confidence that the new players would step up and get things done.”
The women’s soccer team had a flawless season winning nineteen of their twenty games, their only non-win a tie 0-0 with West Salem. The team scored a tremendous one hundred and six goals, letting in only six.
In the state championship game, the women’s team faced Mountainside, a team who they had previously beaten 6-1.
“Going into a third state championship game was very exciting but at the same time a little nerve racking. We knew that mountainside was a very good team, and that they were going to give us a tough fight,” junior Maddy Koleno said. “As a team we had worked so hard the whole season, and knew if we left everything out on that field at the end of the game we would come home with the win.”
Mountainside came out strong, nearly scoring three times. But Jesuit brought the heat and they brought senior Callan Harrington.
Callan Harrington, a University of Washington commit, is a striker and one of the star players on the team. Coming into the game, Harrington had scored a total of 53 goals during her high school season and would score another two in this championship game.These two goals not only greatly contributed to another state championship but also claimed a new state record for Harrington. The record of most goals scored during a high school season was set in 1990 by Tiffany Milbert and Harrington passed it by one goal
Sophomore Taylor Krueger scored another goal, assisted by Harrington, making the final score 3-0 with a victory for the Crusaders.
“It’s always a great feeling winning a state championship,” coach Fennah said. “People always ask the question ‘does it diminish with time?’ and no it doesn’t. It’s always a new season with new players and new faces, so it is always satisfying when things come together.”
In the last three years, the Jesuit women’s soccer team holds a 58-0-1 record, having only tied a single game. For the second year in a row, the team has been recognized as the number one women’s soccer program in the nation.
The women’s soccer team was not the only team to bring home a back-to-back state championship this year. The women’s volleyball team also came together and claimed a title against Central Catholic.
This year was supposed to be a rebuilding year. The women’s volleyball team dominated last year. With a winning streak of 25-0, they were tournament champions, league champions, and state champions. With a starting lineup consisting of six seniors, the loss was very impactful.
The team did not let their loss shake them. They may have had almost completely new faces on the court, but their work ethic stayed the same.
“During this season it was really fun to see all of the younger players step into these big roles and have such a big impact,” junior setter Alison Buccholz said. “Finishing the season by winning a state championship really proved to ourselves that our hard work paid off and proved everyone who doubted us wrong.”
Going into the state tournament there was no one favored team. Jesuit would face teams they had lost to in the past such as West Linn. Head coach Theresa Zimmerlee wasn’t deterred.
“I always think we can win, it’s just something you have to believe,” Coach Zimmerlee said.
The championship game against Central Catholic was a nail-biter. The Crusaders took the first set 25-21 but Central came right back winning the second set 26-24. The next two sets were just as close ending in 27-25 Jesuit and 25-23 Central. Central may have fought hard, but we fought harder winning the final set 15-13!
Four players from the women’s volleyball team were selected as all state players. Junior outside hitter Maddy Dowdal and sophomore libero Maisie Alexander were selected to be on the second all tournament
team. Junior setter Alison Buccholz and sophomore middle hitter Tess
Masingale were selected to be on the first all tournament team. Tess
Masingale was also selected as the state championship game MVP with
16 kills.
“I believe you get about 2 weeks to enjoys a state championship, then you begin work for the next season,” coach Zimmerlee said, “ There are some pretty good teams for next year’s competition. That’s the exciting part, there are no guarantees and you always have to put in the work if you want to be on top”.
Gwynne Olson is a junior staff writer for the Jesuit Chronicle. Gwynne is the youngest of two. Brooke, her older sister, is a recent graduate from the...
