CENTRAL NEW YORK – So long as things proceed as planned, the long wait for a uniform post-season in Central New York high school sports will finally end in June.
Section III’s executive committee approved on Monday the go-ahead for the spring sports of baseball, softball, boys and girls lacrosse, track and field, boys tennis and golf to have sectional championships.
These would be the first sectional competitions in the area since March 2020, when all of the sectional tournaments in winter sports concluded just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since then, an entire spring sports season, along with all of the sectional and state competitions in fall and winter sports, were wiped out, and once again this spring there will be no state tournaments.
“We established a goal to do everything in our power to ensure that our spring sports athletes wouldn’t be denied an opportunity to compete for a sectional championship two years in a row,” said Section III executive director John Rathbun.
Rathbun added that the reason post-season contests could resume was because “our students have done a tremendous job keeping each other safe from COVID” along with approval from the section’s multiple county health departments.
Spring sports teams begin their practices on April 19, with the regular season set to run through June 5. Then, on June 6, playoff meetings will take place for the various sports.
Then the sectional tournaments start, with all games taking place on the home fields of higher seeds and no neutral sites, with the hope of having sectional finals on Saturday, June 13. Thus, the season will conclude before area high schools hold their graduation ceremonies, whatever form they end up taking.
As in both the fall sports season and the current “Fall Sports II” taking place, spectators are limited to two per player and/or 50 percent capacity, with the same rules of social distancing (six feet apart) and mandatory mask-wearing in the stands, though admission for all these games will be free.
Though qualifying standards (40 percent wins overall or against league or class foes) remain, the section reserves the option of splitting a class for a sectional tournament if more than 16 teams qualify in that class.
