Moorefield and East Hardy began the Phase III of offseason workouts for the sports teams just as many counties across the state, but this past week the Hardy County Heath Department shut down all school related athletic activities due to a suspected outbreak discovered recently.
The Hardy County coaches and players have been following the safety protocols during the conditioning phases and all regulations have been checked in the three-week instructional period such as temperatures taken, social distancing with player pods and sanitizing equipment after each use among other measures during the sports practices.
Athletic activities will resume this week in Hardy County.
“The pandemic has really set us back in terms of ‘install’ and weight training. With that being said, I completely support the guidelines and safety procedures in place to help keep everyone safe. Football may be my life, but COVID-19 is so much bigger than that. It’s time for each of us, as human beings, to take responsibility for keeping each other safe,” East Hardy Football coach Devon Orndorff remarked.
“We’re following the [private]guidelines put forth by the WVSSAC so during Phase III we are staying in our Pods, but we can have up to 25 on the field at the same time. Of course, we’re sanitizing all footballs after each use and wearing masks when we are inside lifting. It’s very different than anything we’ve ever experience, but we’re all just glad to be playing football.”
The start date of Fall sports practices have been pushed back and thus eliminating the first game of the football season and trying to adjust the schedules to meet the changes of out-of-state opponents can become an issue in having a full schedule as states haven’t made a final decision regarding the future of the Fall sports.
Moorefield Football had to change the season opener from a game to a scrimmage against Frankfort with the scrimmage moved to Yellow Jacket Field on August 28.
As of right now, the games against Maryland schools Southern and Northern Garrett are still intact for the Yellow Jackets.
“It [pandemic] has just limited what we can do with contact drills. We are still able to get good reps at practice and have our players together. We are taking one step at a time for sure. It has really been a slow down process and really teaches what we want out of our players which is a good thing. Maryland has not made a decision yet as I know of, so the only thing that has changed is we will now scrimmage Frankfort on August 28th at Moorefield and we will begin at 6:00 p.m.,” Moorefield Football coach Matt Altobello stated.
East Hardy Football’s season opener against Strasburg was cancelled and the first scheduled game will be against Petersburg on September 4.
Moorefield Middle School head coach Eric Linville wore his mask and took temperatures of his players as they arrived for practice and all the coaches in Hardy County have been making safety a top priority in following the procedures for all practice sessions which even included marking an “X” on the field for each player at a socially distant spot of six feet apart.
East Hardy Volleyball will have an open gym session three times this week and each player is required to bring their own water bottles as sharing water is not acceptable under the guidelines provided by the WVSSAC.
“If you are following the numbers, two weeks ago we all would have sat there and thought that these numbers were looking good. Two weeks later, we are looking at them thinking they are not so good. And you don’t know which way they are headed,” WVSSAC Executive Director Bernie Dolan explained during an interview with Citynet Statewide Sportsline.
“We are certainly going to allow our schools to continue their three-week (instructional) period. The push back of schools is because there are a lot more complications for schools that there are for practice. Most of our events are outdoors at this point.”[/private]