Fans who can’t get into Columbus East and Columbus North home football games this fall will have a chance to watch those games via livestream.
Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. will have crews at both the Whiteland at Columbus East and Gibson Southern at Columbus North games on Friday and the East at North game on Aug. 28. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, capacity for those games is limited to 250 fans per side.
“Our hope is to stream each of the football home games because they are the sport that is most impacted by the capacity restrictions,” said Josh Burnett, communications coordinator for BCSC. “We will be hoping to livestream soccer, as well as volleyball North-East games and potentially more in the future.”
Burnett is spearheading the broadcast efforts, which will be put on by crews of volunteers.
Streaming will be available on the BCSC You Tube Channel and the BCSC website. The games will be hosted on You Tube, but will have links on bcscschools.org and the BCSC Facebook page.
Burnett listed several objectives for BCSC deciding to livestream the football games and potentially other events.
“We’re trying to help families and communities experience sports during the pandemic,” Burnett said. “No. 2, we’re trying to recoup losses. They’re going to be losing quite a bit of revenue, so we’re having sponsors put this on, and 100 percent of the proceeds are going to the athletic departments. This is a short-term solution with the hope that we’re going to provide more live streaming with our sports going forward. We also want to help players who want to be recruited get film out there.”
East wins thriller in opener
Columbus East’s volleyball season opener on Tuesday night ended too late to get any info besides the scores in Wednesday’s Republic. The game ended around 10:15 p.m. with a dramatic Olympians victory.
East rallied from a two-set deficit to claim a 22-25, 21-25, 25-18, 25-21, 16-14 victory. The Olympians faced three match points trailing 14-11 in the deciding set, but they got a sideout, and junior Katy Jordan served four consecutive points to give East the victory.
“They came out and lost the first two and fought really hard to come back,” said East assistant coach Terry Sweasy, who is filling in for head coach Ellyn McIntosh while she is on maternity leave. “It says a lot about the future for this season.”
Reece Whitehead recorded 18 kills and 37 digs, Jordan notched 56 assists, Cadence Gilley had 41 digs and two aces and Regann Jessee tallied 11 kills and three aces to lead the Olympians. Libby Dippold added eight kills.
North added to Hauser tourney
Columbus North has been added to Hauser’s first Heritage Days Classic volleyball tournament that is scheduled for Sept. 26.
The event will include nine teams. The Bull Dogs were originally to play in the Muncie Central Invitational that day, but that was canceled.
