Jim Henry: Looks like we made it

Jim Henry, The Joplin Globe, Mo.
·3 min read

May 15—There's sadness every May as high school spring sports seasons come to a close.

Coaches deliver those difficult — and sometimes long — speeches to their athletes after a loss signals the end of postseason dreams.

But this year is different. There should be some celebration because when school started last August, there were no guarantees that any sports would be played because of the unknowns associated with COVID-19.

"I was hopeful we would," Joplin athletics director Matt Hiatt said. "But I wouldn't have bet money on it."

"After last year, it was good to play one game," Galena baseball coach Ken Cook said. "We played all 20 varsity games and all 20 junior varsity games. We did not lose one game the entire (baseball season). I've done this for 20 years, and this may be the first time that's ever happened."

"It's amazing," McAuley Catholic athletics director Mike Howard said. "I didn't think there was any way we would, but I'm very happy we were able to get through the whole year without any hiccups."

COVID certainly made its presence felt during the school year, especially in the fall and winter seasons. Some schools had unscheduled — and unwanted — "COVID" breaks in addition to winter breaks and spring breaks.

But COVID caused much fewer problems during the spring sports seasons. And, knock on wood, all the spring championships will be completed.

"We went through a pretty rough patch after Thanksgiving where the numbers as far as hospitalizations and positive cases in our area were pretty high," Hiatt said. "Since then, they've come back down. There have been a couple of upticks, but it's been real manageable."

Last fall several teams had to drop out of their football district tournaments because of COVID. But this spring forfeits were almost nonexistent. Clever had to forfeit its district softball game against Diamond because its team was in quarantine.

Joplin is one of the few schools that did not have to postpone a game.

"We were able to get through the whole year without having to cancel a game because of a bunch of positive cases and quarantines on our teams," Hiatt said. "We had that happen to us a few times because of other teams, but we were able to work through that. This spring for us has been pretty smooth, too, and part of the reason for that is we have a turf baseball field. We were able to run our track meet in the rain and get that done. All in all for us, with COVID and the weather, it's been real smooth. So we're happy."

"I was hopeful through the winter that if we could get to spring sports and get back outside, that would help as far as the numbers. We've certainly had less transmission this spring than we ever have. We're thankful that everybody has been real flexible as we worked through this. As a whole, this year has gone way better than I could have ever expected."

"Obviously we did have to deal with COVID throughout the course of the year," Howard said, "and there were some times where we did have to take some breaks because one of the players may have had COVID and people were around them. But the state never got shut down, and that's a step forward. Hopefully we're moving away from all of this and next year we won't have to deal with it at all."

Follow Sports Editor Jim Henry on Twitter at @Jim_Henry53.