Fall sports in limbo at Heights

Athletic directors in the Capitol Conference — including Wisconsin Heights’ Andy Pickett — met on Aug. 6 to discuss how to proceed with fall sports in the midst of a global pandemic. In the end, the group decided to wait and see what comes out of the WIAA Board of Control meeting on Aug. 14. The Capitol Conference athletic directors will then meet again Aug. 18 and decide whether to move ahead with fall sports or potentially move them to the spring. “We should have something then,” Pickett said. The WIAA Board of Control recently announced it will hold a fall sports season, but the start of the season was delayed. Girls golf, girls swimming, girls tennis and boys and girls cross country — all considered low-risk by health officials — can begin practicing Aug. 17. Football, boys soccer, and both boys and girls volleyball — which are considered the higher risk sports — cannot begin practice until the week of Sept. 7. The earliest dates for the first competitions are Aug. 20 for girls golf, Aug. 21 for girls tennis, Aug. 25 for cross country, and girls swimming and diving. The earliest permissible date for the first boys soccer, and boys and girls volleyball contests are Sept. 15. And the first possible football game may be scheduled for Sept. 23 if the first practice is conducted on Sept. 7. Wisconsin Heights offers 8-man football, boys and girls cross country, girls volleyball, boys soccer and girls golf. The Vanguards also offer a co-op in girls swimming with Lodi. Heights is part of the Capitol South Conference that also includes Belleville, Cambridge, Marshall, New Glarus and Waterloo. The Capitol North Conference includes Columbus, Lake Mills, Lakeside Lutheran, Lodi, Poynette and Watertown Luther Prep. In football, Heights competes in the Southern Conference that includes Belmont, Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah, Saint Mary Catholic/Valley Christian, Williams Bay, Kickapoo/LaFarge, North Crawford and Wonewoc/Weston. The WIAA Board of Control has said that schools which are unable to start fall sports in 2020 may have an opportunity to conduct their fall seasons in the spring. The Board of Control directed its executive staff to develop details and calendars for an alternative three-sport season in the second semester of the 2020-21 school year, but how exactly that will work remains to be seen. Boys basketball is the final winter sport with an end date of March 20. Spring sports such as track and field (March 8) and softball (March 15) begin before winter sports even end. So how schools will wedge fall sports between winter and spring sports remains hazy.  For now, most of the state has indicated a strong desire to attempt playing fall sports in the fall. Many Dane County schools, which are conducting virtual learning only, have announced plans to try pushing fall sports to the spring. The Badger Conference will not have league competitions or crown conference champions in the fall of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Seven of the conference’s 16 schools are in Dane County and are restricted by the county’s health guidelines, which will limit full participation by those schools this fall.  Badger Conference members Sauk Prairie, Reedsburg and Baraboo (Sauk County), along with Portage (Columbia County), Fort Atkinson (Jefferson County), Milton (Rock County), Beaver Dam (Dodge County) and Watertown (Dodge and Jefferson counties) are all still planning to have a fall sports season. Monroe is looking to leave the Badger Conference for this school year alone and join the Rock Valley Conference. Janesville Craig and Janesville Parker (both Rock County) are part of the Badger Conference for football only and hoping to conduct fall sports in the fall. “If I was an athletic director outside of Dane County, I’d run with it, too,” Mount Horeb athletic director Kolleen Nesheim said recently. “I’m rooting for those schools to make it through the fall and have a lot of success. I want them to be successful and to be able to call them up for ideas about what worked and what didn’t.” The Big Eight Conference recently announced that schools can’t hold conference competitions this fall, nor will it crown champions. Schools were given the option, though, of scheduling non-conference competitions in any fall sports, so long as they follow the guidance of the WIAA and local public health officials. Middleton Verona, Sun Prairie and the four Madison Schools — which are all located in Dane County — will try having fall sports in the spring. Janesville Craig, Janesville Parker and Beloit Memorial will try offering fall seasons. The Rock Valley also announced last week that it not would hold any conference competitions or crown any conference champions for 2020 fall sports. For now, the Capitol Conference is in a holding pattern — and hoping to get some clarity after Friday’s WIAA Board of Control meeting.