High school teams throughout the city returned to the court on Monday night in junior varsity action and were followed one day later by the senior crews, with all teams in each of the leagues looking forward to a full season of action.
That’s right -- everything has turned out perfectly despite the concerns in recent weeks that things might end up delayed, truncated or even outright cancelled if favourable conditions weren’t met.
“We’re able to run a full schedule, and even this weekend we have a 16-team junior-senior tournament at Peacock, so I think we’re in a good position,” said Derrick Huschi with the Prairie South School Division. “What we know is that we have refs to be able to work all the games and Assiniboia has a good corps of refs this year, too, so if we run into some trouble we’ll be able to pull from there. So things have gone very, very well.”
An informational meeting last week kicked things into high gear, and long-time local basketball volunteer Rhona Johnson was able to collect vaccine information from each high school team. Once that was in place, schedules were finalized over the weekend, officials assigned and things swung into high gear.
There’s a new look in the senior boys and girls leagues, too, as Notre Dame and Lumsden have signed on and will join Central, Peacock and Vanier in doing battle for Moose Jaw supremacy.
“I think it’s going to be great for the league,” Huschi said. “Any time we go with out-of-town teams, the biggest concern is distance because games run during the week and those two were just natural fits to come in and still make it easy to travel in winter and get home in a decent time.
“Notre Dame has been in the league in previous years and usually have really good teams, and from what I’ve heard Lumsden is feeling they’re going to be competitive and decent as well, so that’s good to see.”
The key now will be to get through the campaign unscathed. While there has been little infection in Moose Jaw high schools, that’s not to say things can’t and won’t happen -- and you don’t have to look very far to find examples.
Briercrest Christian Academy’s volleyball teams took a huge hit and missed a large portion of the season when an outbreak occurred in Caronport at the beginning of the campaign. And earlier this month, a high school curling tournament saw a player later test positive for COVID and bring all teams who took part under the category of close contacts. As that took place during the Dec. 7 weekend, games could possibly resume before Christmas, but after the holidays is more likely.
How such an incident will look in Moose Jaw basketball is a case-by-case basis, but basic plans are in place
“If something happens and we can reschedule, we will, otherwise we’ll have to see how things turn out,” Huschi said.
You can check out the result from the first slate of senior games by clicking right here.
