LOVELAND MAGAZINE

News and Events from the Loveland, Ohio Area

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Since 2004

Tag: OHSAA Winter Tournaments Canceled

  • OSU AT MARYLAND FOOTBALL GAME CANCELED

    OSU AT MARYLAND FOOTBALL GAME CANCELED

    Maryland pauses team-related activities; the game was set to be played at College Park, Md., on Saturday

    by Cassie Mattia

    Cassie Mattia is the Associate Editor of Loveland Magazine and lives in Historic Downtown Loveland.

    Columbus, Ohio – COVID-19 has yet again claimed another college sporting event as the football game between No. 3 Ohio State University and the University of Maryland, which was scheduled for tomorrow at 3 p.m. in College Park, Md., televised on the Big Ten Network, has been canceled. The game will not be rescheduled.

    Earlier this week the University of Maryland put out a press release saying that they would be hitting the pause button on all team activities because of the rise in COVID-19 cases. Maryland’s press release said that “the joint decision to pause football activities and cancel Saturday’s game was made by Director of Athletics Damon Evans and University of Maryland President Darryll Pines, following a recommendation from University health officials, and in consultation with the Big Ten Conference.”

    According to the Maryland press release, during the past seven days, eight Maryland Football players have tested positive for COVID-19. Maryland Athletics released a testing update stating that between September 30th and November 10th 1,510 on-campus PCR screening tests were conducted for student-athletes in all sports. 10 student-athletes tested positive. 

    The Big Ten Conference started testing football student-athletes on September 30th and the men’s and women’s basketball team on October 26th. All other student-athletes will continue to be tested weekly.

    For the latest sports updates stay tuned the Sports 411 with me, Cassie Mattia!

  • OHSAA Announces Cancellation of all Winter Tournaments

    OHSAA Announces Cancellation of all Winter Tournaments

    by Cassie Mattia

    Columbus, Ohio – Since the COVID-19 outbreak athletes all over Ohio have been awaiting the decision on whether or not their sport will continue with competitions. On Thursday, OHSAA’s Director of Communications Tim Stried, Executive Director Jerry Snodgrass, and the rest of the OHSAA staff worked together to release a statement confirming that all OHSAA winter tournaments would be moved from postponed to canceled. Stried specified that the wrestling, basketball and ice hockey winter tournaments would not be completed. As unfortunate as this is for many Ohio High School athletes it is a matter of health and safety at the end of the day. Below is a statement from Tim Stried regarding the cancellation of the winter tournaments.

    “The Ohio High School Athletic Association announced Thursday that the winter sports tournaments of wrestling, basketball and ice hockey, which were postponed indefinitely on March 12, are now canceled due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. It is anticipated that schools will not be able to reopen for many weeks, which prevents interscholastic athletics from taking place.

    The start of the OHSAA’s spring sports of softball, lacrosse, baseball, track and field, and boys tennis is still postponed, which coincides with schools not being open.

    Earlier Thursday, OHSAA Executive Director Jerry Snodgrass and his staff communicated with the schools that were still competing in those winter tournaments to announce the decision.

    ‘We are just devastated that the tournaments cannot be completed,’ said Snodgrass. ‘But our priority is the safety of our student-athletes, coaches, communities, and officials. Governor Mike DeWine is asking all Ohioans to do everything they can to stop the spread of this virus. That request, along with our schools not being able to reopen for weeks, means that school sports cannot happen at this time. Even if our schools reopen this spring, it will be difficult to find facilities willing to host the tournaments. Most campuses are shut down until mid to late summer. We are already planning for ways that these student-athletes will be honored at next year’s state tournament,’ said Snodgrass.

    The 16 schools that qualified for the girls’ basketball state tournament and the four teams that qualified for the ice hockey state tournament will all receive state tournament programs. The 672 student-athletes who qualified for the wrestling state tournament will all receive a program, certificate and weigh-in card.

    These four winter state tournaments and a few events during World War 2 (1941-45) are the only sports cancellations in the history of the OHSAA, which was founded in 1907.

    No state champions will be listed for these four sports in 2020. The OHSAA does not use state polls from the media or coaches associations to determine state champions.

    A reminder that OHSAA coaches can communicate electronically with their student-athletes, but no practices, scrimmages or contests of any kind are permitted until further notice.

    On March 13, Snodgrass sent this memo to member schools: https://www.ohsaa.org/news-media/articles/ohsaa-winter-and-spring-sports-update

    More information regarding spring sports will be provided when available.”

    If you would like more information on the latest announcements and Ohio High School sports updates you can visit www.ohsaa.org. If you would like to check out OHSAA’s social media pages you can visit twitter.com/OHSAASports or facebook.com/OHSAASports.