The future of fall sports on the North Shore is slowly rounding into form, as the Cape Ann League (CAL) took another step toward finalizing its plans for the fall sports season after a marathon meeting Thursday. While there have been no concrete steps taken to this point, two of the league’s schools — Lynnfield and Hamilton-Wenham — have already had their respective school committees vote to proceed with sports in the “Fall Sports I” season that begins Sept. 18.
“The Cape League Principals and Athletic Directors had a joint meeting Thursday,” CAL Commissioner Leslie Murray said in a statement. “The league further refined the guidelines, procedures and best practices for possibly moving ahead with the “Fall I” sports season. The league will release more details in the coming weeks.
“The CAL Principals and Athletic Directors will be sharing information with their superintendents and school committees in the weeks to come. Each district will review the information and act on it accordingly. All schools have different dates and times to do this work. The CAL Athletic Directors will continue revising all the details and making adjustments. We expect to have all this work completed no later than Sept. 18.”
The Cape Ann League includes Lynnfield, North Reading, Amesbury, Georgetown, Manchester-Essex, Ipswich, Hamilton-Wenham, Newburyport, Pentucket, Rockport and Triton.
In other news from the area, former CAL member and new member of the Northeastern Conference Masconomet bucked its fellow NEC members Wednesday night when its school committee voted to proceed with sports in the “Fall Sports I” season. Just last week, the NEC principals voted, 9-0-3, to postpone all fall sports until the “Fall Sports II” season that begins in late February. At the time of that decision, there were five NEC communities — Lynn, Saugus, Salem, Revere and Winthrop — that were designated as “red” districts that would be forced to postpone all fall sports until “Fall Sports II.” However, since then both Saugus and Salem have moved into the “yellow” designation that would require a school committee vote on whether to play in September. NEC members Swampscott and Peabody are also designated as “yellow,” while all the rest — Beverly, Danvers, Gloucester, Masconomet and Marblehead — are designated as either “green” or “unshaded.” All communities in the “yellow,” “green” or “unshaded” categories will have their fates decided by their respective school committees in votes that are scheduled over the next couple of weeks.
Marblehead was the first community to vote that it would explore avenues for holding sports in the “Fall Sports I” season, voting unanimously in a school committee meeting Thursday night to give the principal and athletic director permission to do so. There has been no commitment made by Marblehead to play sports in the “Fall Sports I” season, only to explore potential ways to safely play this fall.
Masconomet students participated in a rally, along with other NEC schools last week to protest the decision by the principals, and it seems that the school committee took notice. Masconomet identified several roadblocks to overcome as well, including:
– It is unknown how many NEC schools will be available for Masconomet to play this fall, as other schools have not made their decisions yet.
– Holding some practice and games on weekends may help alleviate the issue of limited daylight hours after Nov. 1 and obtaining buses to comply with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education 30 percent capacity limit.
– Volleyball as an indoor sport will pose the greatest challenge, but for all sports, the intent is to put safety first and apply creative problem-solving to achieve play time for athletes.
