November 18, 2020 at 10:59 a.m.
Winter season begins in earnest
Winter season begins in earnest
Six Rhinelander High School winter sports teams started preparing for what, for most, will be a slightly condensed season. They are doing so as protocols involving sanitation, social distancing and face coverings from the fall sports season carry over into the winter.
"We had a great fall season and I have to commend the coaches and athletes on their part," RHS activities director Brian Paulson said. "Obviously, we're just trying to mitigate COVID-19. It's impossible for it not to infect others. We'll continue our mitigations processes and reminders. The reminders are for behavior changes (staying) six feet away, having your masks up properly. It is a behavioral change and those take a long time to learn."
The facial coverings are a topic of discussion as the season begins. As of now, WIAA winter sports guidance directs all participants in indoor athletics (with the exception of swimming) to wear masks at all times "practicing or playing," in accordance to an executive order signed by Gov. Tony Evers Sept. 22. Should that order expire, the guidance states, "Athletes may wear a mask while participating in exertion, but it is not required. Athletes not participating should wear a mask."
For now, coaches are preparing as if their teams will be participating in masks this season.
"We're just going to do the best we can," RHS girls' basketball coach Ryan Clark said Monday afternoon. "I think it will help us develop our depth a little bit. I think everyone's understandable, do the best you can. You're going to need a couple breaks just to get some breath and get some fresh air, but we'll try to make it a non-issue. The kids, they want to play. We'll find a way to compete."
Girls' basketball was one of several sports to start this week, along with boys' and girls' hockey, gymnastics and Alpine and Nordic skiing.
RHS gymnastics coach Heather Sturtevant said the facial coverings have not been a major issue for her team so far, in part because they were required during the few weeks the team was able to gather for training this summer and because her athletes have adapted to find the right balance of comfort, performance and protection with their masks, through construction and the types of materials used.
"We're not at the beginning of this. We're, what, six months in? The girls, they're going to school with masks on," she said. "They're doing all this, so this really is becoming out new normal, at least for right now."
All of the protocols are old hat by now for RHS boys' hockey coach M.J. Laggis, fresh off coaching the Hodag cross country team this fall. He said his team is looking into coverings that go over the cage of their helmets as opposed to directly over the face. But otherwise, he said from spacing out in the locker room, to the use of water bottles, pretty much everything is different from the last time the Hodag hockey team gathered.
"We've got shifts in the locker room and we're going to do everything we can to be as safe as we can and have a season," he said.
Barring any situations were teams get shut down due to COVID concerns, winter sports teams should, in general, have more opportunities to compete than their fall sports counterparts. So far, the conference components to the schedules in boys' and girls' basketball, boys' hockey, wrestling, gymnastics and boys' swimming, remain unchanged. The majority of multi-team invites have been canceled, but there are more non-conference games on the schedule than there were during the fall.
"We have more opportunities now for non-conference games because the season's longer compared to the fall," Paulson said.
Paulson noted the Great Northern Conference has yet to announce fan attendance policies for winter sports, and that the decisions regarding how many spectators will be allowed to watch in person will be determined by each individual school - similar to what was set during the fall season.
During the fall, no spectators were permitted during conference girls' swim meets and attendance varied from two to four tickets per player for volleyball matches, depending on the school.
"It could be possible that spectators might not be allowed," Paulson said. "Our No. 1 goal when we went back in August was to give our kids the opportunity to participate. If it came down to that, Wisconsin is on the rise (in terms of COVID cases) and there always is the possibility that there might not be spectators for a certain period of time. We would continue to evaluate that through the season."
As of Tuesday, the Oneida County Health Department reported that there were 617 active cases of COVID-19 in the county, accounting for roughly one-third of the total cases the department has recorded through the duration of the pandemic.
Other notes from the first days of practice.
Girls' hoops making up for lost time
Not that there is ever a good season to lose an offseason training program, but no summer workouts likely hindered the RHS girls' basketball team this year more than most.
That's because the Hodags, off a 19-6 season and a trip to the WIAA sectional semifinals, are trying to find a new identity after graduating conference co-players of the year Kenedy Van Zile and Cynthia Beavers.
Clark said an extra week of contact days, which the Hodags took advantage of earlier this month, helped somewhat but the team has very little time to find out what it has between now and its season opener this coming Tuesday night at Wausau West.
"We lose a lot of players, a lot of scoring, a lot of talent, but we have to find out what works best for this group and put them in spots to be successful," he said. "This is a challenge for me. I've been blessed the last few years knowing I have certain strengths and talent. This week especially, I've just got to find out what we're going to be best at."
The Hodags are slated to scrimmage at Edgar tonight before embarking on a 22-game schedule that will see the team playing virtually twice every week between next week and the start of the WIAA playoffs in early February.
Boys' hockey short-handed for good reason
Laggis said he expects 23 players out for the Hodag hockey team this season, but the team was without a handful of players for the first four days of practice.
Those players had a pretty good excuse - they are on the RHS football team that finished its season last night in a contest against Mosinee.
That's a situation Laggis has never faced before, but with the football season going later into the calendar this year, and the Hodags making it to the final week of the WIAA culminating event, it's caused a number of absences.
"I talked to a few of them today and said, 'That's a great problem to have. Go win another football game. It's only a few days and just makes you a better athlete,'" Laggis said. "I'm really happy for those guys and it's wonderful that they're having some success."
The Hodags will scrimmage this coming Tuesday at East/Merrill. Laggis admitted the team didn't have "great skating legs" due to the lack of opportunities to get on the ice this summer, but that he's eager to see the team start quickly in the scrimmage against the Bluejacks.
"I want to see us hit the ground running. I'm not going to say mid-season form, that's a great stretch, but just be very competitive and playing as a group already on Tuesday when we scrimmage," he said.
The Hodags are slated to open the regular season Dec. 1 against Ashland, though Laggis said that game is in doubt due to COVID concerns with Ashland.
Gymnasts start in home away from home
The RHS gymnastics team will have a space to call its own this season, but still had to wait a few days to move in.
With finishing touches inside the Hodag Dome being completed, including the installation of the rubberized track lanes, the gymnasts could not get into the dome as scheduled to start practice on Monday.
RHS gymnastics coach Heather Sturtevant found a more than suitable Plan B however, utilizing the Northwoods Gymnastics facility in Sugar Camp, for the first few days.
A backup location was a necessity, as the WIAA requires 20 practice days prior to a team's first competition. The Hodags are slated to host Chequamegon in a GNC Small dual Dec. 10.
It's a short-term setback for a long-term gain. Once the Hodags are settled in, they will have an dedicated area inside the Hodag Dome. That means no sharing gym space with the RHS basketball teams and no setting up and tearing down equipment multiple times per season when the third court inside the Miazga Gym is needed for other events.
"The girls can really just have their space and just really feel like they have a home where we're not in and out, and kind of feel like we're renting," Sturtevant said.
Sturtevant added, in addition to masks, some other social distancing considerations were discussed Monday, including the assignment of bins that contain chalk and tape for each individual - items that were typically shared by athletes prior to COVID. Otherwise, the first few days have been about getting reacquainted with the equipment.
"The big thing this week is getting back on equipment, physically touching (it)," she said. "In the summer, we only had the one week in the gym. So touching equipment and outlining realistic routines. They can still have a few goals to up a skill, but if we can't get there, that's OK. At least we know where we're starting from with the skills in our routines."
Edge trying balance co-op amid pandemic
There's an added degree of difficulty for the Northern Edge girls' hockey co-op starting up during the pandemic. Whereas virtually every other RHS program is a standalone program, the girls' hockey program is brining in skaters from four different schools.
Coach Tom Roeser said he's trying to keep things as normal as possible at practice, though he mentioned power skating and conditioning drills will likely take longer with fewer skaters starting at once to maintain distancing.
The biggest logistical hurdle, he said, is keeping things spaced out in the locker room. For a 5 p.m. practice, the team's skaters from Rhinelander need to arrive at 4:30 to get ready. Those traveling from Lakeland, Antigo or Wabeno then take the locker room at 4:45.
"The Lakeland girls are getting ready on the ride here," he said. "Most of them will be dressed when they get here. I've got the Rhinelander girls in the locker room first shift. I have two shifts, essentially. Antigo will be in at 4:45 to get ready. They get 15 minutes and they're on the ice."
Paulson said, for road games, not only will the players travel one per seat on the bus, as is current district policy, the players will be assigned seats based on school to reduce intermingling.
What's more, Paulson said scheduling has been more challenging than normal. The team's annual Hodagland tournament over the Christmas break is off the schedule and, with School District of Rhinelander policy currently not allowing overnight trips, finding games within driving distance with so few girls' hockey programs in the state has been a challenge.
The Northern Edge opens the season Saturday, Nov. 28 at Fox Cities. With only seven full on-ice practices prior to the first game, Roeser said he needs to work quickly to assess his personnel.
"I've just got to kind of feel them out and see where we are skill-wise, who's meshing, who can work together," he said. "I think we've got a solid 2 1/2 lines right now and our four defensemen I'm really happy with."
Nordic skiers happy to be outside
Typically, the Rhinelander High School Nordic ski team would start practice at the beginning of November. Coach Charil Reis said team took an extra week and a half this year to get going, "just to give ourselves a little more time to wrap our minds around how we're going to run practices as safely as possible."
The squad, roughly 25 skiers strong, has been split in to two groups - a competition team and a development team to increase physical distancing. The team practices outside most of the week, and Reis said the team didn't mind.
"We thrive in the cold," she said. "It doesn't really bother us that we're not in the dome yet. It's a good time to acclimate to this cold and get kids used to what they need to wear to be comfortable racing on snow. For us, it's just normal. The only thing different is the spacing and the masks."
For the most part, that's the biggest adjustment so far for the Nordic skiers. As of now, virtually all of the races the team normally attends are still on as scheduled, though Northwoods Nordic Skiing, which organizes the Hodag Nordic Challenge at the Cedric A. Vig Outdoor Classroom, has already announced that its two-day event will be modified with one day of high school racing and one day of middle school racing.
For now, the team is playing its typical waiting game hoping that significant snow falls soon enough for the first races on the schedule - the Ice Age Opener Dec. 5 in Ironwood, Mich. and the Lakeland Invite at Minocqua Winter Park Dec. 15 - to take place.
Before the snow falls and the trails open, the team will have the option to use the Hodag Dome for practices, which Reis said will be a significant upgrade from when the team was relegated to running the halls at RHS when it had indoor practice.
"We were constantly running into people at the corners in the hallways," she said. "All that hall running was so dangerous, really, and you couldn't really get any speed or do anything that required any distance wider than the halls in the high school. We're really fortunate to have the dome. I have to pinch myself. I'm really excited that it's viable and its available for us to use."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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