After Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Sunday that high school sports were being shut down to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, some area teams who are in the playoffs currently were left wondering, "what’s next?"
The celebration in Muskegon didn’t last long over the weekend. After winning their ninth-straight district championship, over Marquette, the Big Reds were set to host East Grand Rapids this Saturday at Hackley Field in the regional finals, with a chance to move on to the Division 3 State Championship.
The same can be said for the Mona Shores Football team, last year’s Division 2 state champion, who were set to play East Lansing this weekend, with a chance to go to back to the State Final, and defend its title.
That all came to a halt Sunday evening after Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced that high school athletics would shut down, for the time being, as the state tries to flatten the recent rise of COVID-19 cases. Leaving players, coaches and fans left wondering what could have been.
On Monday, the Michigan High School Athletic Association tried to quell some of those fears, saying that they would do everything in their power to see the playoffs through to the end once the restrictions have lifted. MHSAA Mark Yul.
“What I can tell you, we will have a plan that completes those tournaments completed in the calendar year 2020,” Yul said. “We are going to wait until Dec. 8th, hopefully our numbers get to a point where we can resume practice and competition and we will get those fall tournaments completed by January 1st.”
Still that is all contingent on the three week shutdown working when it comes to containing the spread of the coronavirus, something that is by no means guaranteed to happen.
