Whiteland’s Austin Willoughby drives to the basket between Columbus East’s Will Rieckers (23) and Ben Sylva (30) in the Orange Pit at Columbus East High School. The Olympians’ home game against Shelbyville scheduled for tonight has been postponed. Tommy Walker/For The Republic
The Republic file photo
After a relatively smooth fall season and beginning to the winter sports season, COVID-related postponements are starting to pop up.
Last week, Columbus East announced the postponement of its gymnastics meet with Columbus North, which was to be Monday, until Feb. 21 because of quarantines within the Olympians varsity and JV programs.
Then Monday, East postponed its boys basketball game against Shelbyville scheduled for tonight due to one COVID case, plus others in quarantine because of close contact.
“Hopefully, we can get it in at some point,” East athletics director Pete Huse said. “The irony is, this is the week last year we had to cancel a JV game because of this.”
The Olympians’ home games with Bloomington South on Friday and Seymour on Saturday are still on.
The Centers for Disease Control recently reduced the necessary quarantine period from 10 days to five. That policy went into effect Jan. 4, and East and the IHSAA are following those guidelines.
“It definitely helps out getting kids back quicker,” Huse said. “The IHSAA with their rules, if you missed eight days, you have to have four practices back, so that helps out a lot. This all started on Saturday, so Friday is the first day back. Most of our kids are out because of contact and not with COVID, so if no more cases pop up, we plan on playing Friday and Saturday.”
Shelbyville (2-8) has the worst record of any team on East’s schedule this season, so tonight would have been an excellent opportunity for the Olympians (1-8) to snap a five-game losing streak.
“We look forward to playing every game, especially this day and age with all the COVID stuff going on,” East coach Brent Chitty said. “Hopefully, we’ll get it rescheduled down the road and we’ll be ready to go on Friday against Bloomington South.”
The East gymnastics team’s quarantine came as a result of gymnasts being in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID. They were looking forward to what would have been their home opener against North on Monday.
“They’re OK with it since it got rescheduled, and we’re still able to do it in the future,” East co-coach Katie Menefee said. “We’re just trying to keep as many people as we can healthy for sectional, and we certainly don’t want to give anything to North either.”
The Olympians’ next scheduled gymnastics meet is Jan. 18 at Franklin Central. Their home opener now will be Feb. 2 against Connersville.
Huse is hoping the recent postponements aren’t the start of a wave.
“Right now, with all this, I’m trying to live day by day,” Huse said.
