SPASH MOVES FALL SPORTS TO SPRING
Sports Desk – The Stevens Point Area School District has suspended all fall athletics and extracurriculars activities.
The school superintendent Craig Gerlach released a statement on Thursday stating, “Earlier today, we made the very difficult decision to suspend all fall athletics and extracurricular activities. This decision represents hours of meetings with local public health officials, district leaders, coaches and administrators.”
SPASH is the first local school to pull the plug on fall high school athletics but might not be surprising to most however as the city of Stevens Point made a decision earlier this summer that would not allow UWSP, SPASH or Pacelli to use their home football field for competition.
The largest school in the central Wisconsin area SPASH is home to more than 1,500 students and a risk with that many students and along with the travel to every fall sporting event the school district decided to make the choice to move to the spring.
The spring sports seasons schedule is as follows:
Swimming & Diving-Girls: Monday, Feb. 15 - Week of April 5
Volleyball: Monday, Feb. 22 - Week of April 12
Tennis-Girls: Monday, March 8 - Week of April 26
Football: Monday, March 8 - Week of May (Earliest first game is Wed., March 24)
Cross Country: Monday, March 15 - Week of May 3
Soccer-Boys: Monday, March 22 - Week of May 10
Golf-Girls: Monday, March 29 - Week of May 17
This decision to move fall sports to the spring is obviously a tough choice and superintendent Craig Gerlach shares that sentiment. “We know this decision will be incredibly disappointing and painful for our students and families, especially our seniors. Please know that we have carefully and extensively considered all options and are working to protect the health and safety of our students, staff, and families.”
The Wisconsin Valley Conference is going to have a tough task upcoming as the fall season approaches and many of the schools are spread out in multiple counties and with large school populations.
In the Football Valley Association conference the SPASH Panthers join Appleton West as teams that will move to the spring. Wausau West and East voted earlier this week along with Hortonville that they will be playing this fall.