Friday night’s indoor track meet at Wheaton College in Norton may be the last one of the season for some teams.
Originally, Smith College was set to host three indoor track meets in January — with restrictions to the number of athletes able to compete and other safety protocols in place — but that will no longer be the case.
Smith College made the decision on Thursday that it won’t be hosting meets “due to worsening pandemic conditions in the region,” Smith College Senior Director For News and Strategic Communications Stacey Schmeidel confirmed in an email to the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
“We will continue to monitor public health conditions and adjust our policies accordingly,” Schmeidel wrote.
The PVIAC, which organizes the meet and governs high school sports in the Pioneer Valley, wasn’t schedule to compete at Smith until Jan. 9. They hosted a meet on Friday at Wheaton College still, but beyond that there is no guarantee of another meet happening.
“Within a few hours, I went from euphoria to depression,” Frontier coach Bob Smith said after hearing the news. “The only thing we can control is how we perform tonight [at Wheaton]. We’ll see what happens. Hopefully there’s some kind of miracle — I’m sure the powers that be and the PVIAC are hard at work trying to find a solution — but we just have no idea. The group I have is really ready and working hard. I hate to see it shattered like this.”
There was no indoor track last winter due to a lack of facility access, though some programs competed in indoor events on an outdoor track during the Fall II season between last spring and winter.
Having to use colleges to host meets meant the possibility of the school pulling out and that became a reality on Thursday.
“We all knew this was a possibility,” Mohawk Trail coach Joe Chadwick said. “As COVID spreads more and more, I’m not surprised. Colleges are really, really careful with this as they should be. We’re at the mercy of the colleges.”
“Indoor track is really the only sport that is at the mercy of someone else in terms of facility,” Smith added. “Nobody has an indoor track at their school.”
There are other non-PVIAC meets happening around the state, with Mahar traveling to the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston last Sunday. The issue for some of those meets is that you need to qualify for them, and with just one meet on Friday, that isn’t a reality for some athletes.
“It’s disappointing for my girls,” Chadwick said. “I have a really young team. Most of my ninth graders, it’s the first season for seven or eight of them. We have [Friday’s meet at Wheaton] and then we’ll see what happens. Maybe things will get better and we’ll find a way to have them. There are other meets but you need to qualify. It’s fine for people like Dennis Simmons and Sean O’Dea who are qualified. These other kids who want to may not be able to qualify and participate.”