Fall season to begin on schedule

By Mike Zummo
Posted 9/1/21

All Fall sports are a go. Official word came four days after the official start of Fall practice

The Section 9 Athletic Council announced on Friday it will conduct the Fall 2001 season in all …

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Fall season to begin on schedule

Posted

All Fall sports are a go. Official word came four days after the official start of Fall practice

The Section 9 Athletic Council announced on Friday it will conduct the Fall 2001 season in all sports, including “higher-risk sports”, football, volleyball, and cheerleading.

The section will conduct sports at all levels, including JV, freshman and modified. Modified sports are scheduled to begin next week.

According to the guidelines, indoor sports will be required to wear masks, which includes players, coaches, site personnel and officials. Game day cheerleading will follow based on whether a competition is held indoors or outdoors.

The only exception to the indoor masking guidelines are swimmers that are in the water. They must wear their masks when they are out of the water.

Spectators will be allowed at indoor sports, but they will be required to wear masks.

Masks are not required for outdoor sports. Section 9 did not set any mask requirements for spectators at outdoor events.

Section 9 has also implemented special COVID-19 seeding and qualifying criteria for team sports.

Any league game that is used for qualifying or seeding that is canceled due to COVID-19, the points will be split evenly for the purposes of seeding and qualifying.

The game can be made up at the discretion of the schools or league requirement, but will not be used for seeding purposes, but can be used for selection into the tournament.

Any team that must quarantine only a few players, but still has enough athletes to play are required to play the game as scheduled.

Football can reschedule a potential COVID-19 cancellation if it stays within the same weekend. For example, if a team can’t play Friday due to a quarantine, it can only be made up Saturday or Sunday.

Last year, the Newburgh Free Academy Goldbacks were shut out of the four-team Section 9 Class AA playoffs after their game against Pine Bush was canceled when the Bushmen had to quarantine. They weren’t allowed to make up the game, denying the Goldbacks a potential league victory.

Uncertainty has flown over football, volleyball and cheerleading since Aug. 12 when the New York State Education Dept. recommended higher-risk sports be canceled in areas of high community transmission of COVID-19 unless all participants were fully vaccinated.

Last season, the New York State Public High School Athletic Association postponed high-risk fall sports to a March/April “Fall 2” season. Section 9 went a step further by postponing all Fall sports to the Fall 2 season.

The first higher-risk sports to take the field was basketball and wrestling in February in empty gymnasiums with a few teams not being able to get their approvals together in time to participate.

However, most local programs were on the field in March, while a few teams had to shut down for a period during the Fall 2 season. There were fewer required quarantines during the spring season.

The fall guidelines are all subject to change based on any new guidelines that might be established by either Gov. Kathy Hochul, State Department of Health, local Department of Health, NYS Education Department, or NYSPHSAA.

The guidance only applies to the upcoming fall season.