In the past few weeks, MCPS has seen great amounts of snow and extremely low temperatures. With three days of school canceled, snow on the ground and freezing temperatures, WJ sports have had to find ways to push through.
Many of the sports teams have been affected by the school cancellations. With concern for athletes’ safety getting to practice and some teams practicing outdoors, there has been some difficulty. The safety of holding practices and games has been decided by MCPS, athletic directors and coaches assigned to each sport.
Both girls’ and boys’ basketball teams had rescheduled games and missed practices.
“The first rescheduled game we had to play was after we had four days off and no practices so we didn’t play very well, the weather had a big impact,” boys’ basketball coach Kevin Parrish said.
The basketball teams practice inside the school to escape the cold and keep up with the season. However, the cancellations still caused the teams to have back-to-back schedules after losing many practice days.
The constant snow and multiple days in a row caused the team to lose practice time, which hurt teamwork during the games.
“The second rescheduled game we played was back-to-back Churchill and Whitman. Whitman is the best team we’ve played and without being prepared with practices and playing Churchill the day before we struggled,” Parrish said.
The swim team was also impacted by the recent weather conditions. Luckily, they only had practices changed due to the weather and were able to continue with their original schedule.
“The snow days affected some of our practices but none of our meets. The team considered the cancellations from the snow based on whether or not school was canceled and it was mostly up to Jamie, our coach,” senior Isla Bartholomew said.
WJ’s indoor track and field team had cancellations of practices and delays of meets due to dangerous conditions. The team practices outside in the stadium, so with the recent snow and temperatures they have had to adapt.
“Running outside sucks and running inside is a big disadvantage because we haven’t been able to do much,” senior Hillary Alao said.
They canceled practices and moved them inside. The team runs through the hallways of the school to get their practices in. The team is limited to one hallway on the bottom floor of the building, leaving very little room for a team of over 70 runners.
An invitational meet run by WJ was delayed but still took place when the roads were safe.
As the weather gets colder it has yet to snow again, allowing indoor sports to get back onto their original schedules.
