Published April 8, 2020
By STEPHEN MARTELLUCCI
LYNNFIELD — Last week the MIAA (Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association) had a meeting to decide what to do about the spring sports season due to the COVID-19 crisis. The MIAA had previously decided that if the season started on April 27, there would be a shortened season with playoffs that would end by June 20.
When Governor Charlie Baker continued the shutdown of schools to May 4, it looked like there would just be a regular season with no playoffs.
At the meeting, they decided that if teams started practice on May 4, they could start the season on May 9 in most sports. Teams would play between an eight to 12 game regular season and the playoffs would take place with the final date moved back to June 27.
This means a team with only eight games could qualify for the states with a 4-4 record.
The postseason would only go to the sectional level so there would only be sectional champions.
The athletic directors will have to make a new schedule with only league games.
The regular season for baseball, lacrosse, rugby, softball, tennis and volleyball would end on June 12 and the tournament would start on June 15.
For track and field, June 15 is the cutoff date with the sectional and division meets taking place between June 17 and 27.
“It would be awesome to get a season in even if abbreviated, but I’m still looking at it as we have to be sure the community, state and nation is in the right place to go back to school and open up team sports again and I’m not confident that will occur in one month,” said Lynnfield High girls’ lacrosse coach Ethan Blanchette. “We only play each Cape Ann League team once anyway, so that part of the scheduling would not affect us much.
“I think scheduling outside the league would be challenging since everyone would be scrambling to schedule games and there are frequently dates that have referee shortages, so that could come into play. Plus, we would be back at school and there is a chance we would have to work around senior week activities, which I feel terrible that the seniors may miss right now and other school events.
“If it were to occur, we would make it happen and I would be psyched to be out on the field again. I’m just not at a point where I think it’s really going to happen, so I’m tempering expectations and we will see what transpires over the next few weeks.”
Pioneers head softball coach Peter Marinelli was happy with the decision by the MIAA.
“They are trying to keep the season alive for the benefit of the kids,” he said. “I hate this situation for the seniors. We will just have to wait and see what happens.”
Marinelli feels that his team could play each league team once which would be 11 total games. For the 12th game, he thinks a good idea would be for the first and second place teams to play each other and then go third vs. fourth and so on.
Details will continue to evolve as April rolls along.