Local high school wrestlers won’t take to the mats until Monday, May 10, at the earliest. Photo by Michelle Gilbert | MaxPreps

Wrestling has temporarily become a spring sport.

Facing pressure from five county Health Departments within its boundaries, Section VI’s Executive Committee decided Thursday to move wrestling to the spring season.

“Our Executive Committee met with representatives from all five counties and chose to follow the pleas of our health officials and the CDC, to pause our wrestling season,” said Brett Banker, Section VI president. “We never discussed canceling wrestling completely although that was an option. We know that a move to spring may cause conflicts with athletes and coaches, however we are thankful we had this alternative.”

In the same release, Section VI confirmed the dates it will host three separate seasons in the coming months.

The Winter season, which is already underway for low- and moderate-risk sports like bowling, boys swimming and skiing, will run through March 27. Section VI will host playoffs for winter sports, concluding with sectional championships.

“Our goal, really, is to try and get 16 games in,” Silver Creek Athletic Director Sean Helmer said of his school’s basketball teams. “I think that’s reasonable. You aren’t playing back-to-back-to-backs or anything like that.”

Fall II, which will include the higher-risk sports of football and volleyball, will begin March 22 and run through May 15. Section VI also intends to host sectional playoffs for football and volleyball.

The new Spring season, which will now include wrestling, baseball and softball, and track and field, will begin May 10 and run through June 30. In its announcement, Section VI said it has notified the New York State Public High School Athletic Association that it will not take part in any Spring state championships — if they are held — instead focusing on maximizing dates for regular-season games and sectional playoffs.

“As difficult as it was, by removing our teams from state competition in the spring, we can now extend our calendars and offer more contests for our athletes,” Banker said. “We anticipate that with this move, our athletes will likely complete full seasons, which they lost last year.”

“I don’t think it’s going to matter. I think they had the foresight that this was probably going to happen anyways,” added Kevin Salisbury, Southwestern athletic director. “Let’s make a move to put our kids in position to expand their seasons now and not worry about overlaps.”

The section’s new calendar carries just one-week overlaps between the seasons. With practice requirements at the start of a season, student-athletes would not miss any games.

“I’m a coach as well. You know what’s going to happen and you can see all the possibilities. This makes it less of an issue for sure,” Helmer said. “It allows us to get more kids playing. With the two-week conflict, you probably wouldn’t have had kids committing to a sport if it conflicted with their favorite sport.”

For instance, a basketball player who also plays football would only miss the first week of football practice, and up to four of their basketball practices during that week would also count toward football. The same would go for a volleyball player in Fall II who also plays softball in the Spring season.

“Throughout the course of my athletic director meetings from the two counties over the course of the school year, that’s been one of our biggest concerns. In our area we have kids who play multiple sports. We’ve all been worried about that overlap,” Salisbury said. “To see the section minimize that was excellent on their part.”

Labeled as a high-risk sport, wrestling falls under the same guidelines as basketball and ice hockey during the winter season. As such, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office last Friday said the high-risk winter season could begin this coming Monday as long as local Health Departments gave their blessing.

This past Monday, each of the local Health Departments (Erie, Niagara, Allegany, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties) gave the OK for schools to begin practice Feb. 1. But on Tuesday, those same five Health Departments came out with a statement saying they recommended against hosting a wrestling season until a later date when community transmission of COVID-19 is significantly lower.

“It’s disappointing that we’re not going to do it right now, but it’s good the kids will have the opportunity in the spring,” Salisbury said. “Dontae Hoose is a wrestler and track kid. In the past Garrett Swan had done wrestling and track … Gavin Dewey as well. I feel bad for those guys because they’ll be in a position to potentially have to make a choice.

“It is permissable by Section VI to do two sports in a season,” Salisbury added. “It will depend on how we feel as a district about it.”

Health Department officials noted wrestling involves participants in very close proximity for extended periods of time, which significantly increases the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Similarly, masks, which are a method of COVID-19 risk reduction, are not recommended to be worn during wrestling because of a choking hazard.

“It was surprising when they just OK’d high-risk sports that they included wrestling originally, but then changed their stance,” Helmer said. “I’m not sure why they wouldn’t have said these specific sports (basketball, ice hockey, cheerleading) are cleared and more had to be determined with wrestling.”

NOTES: For now, Section VI is not allowing spectators at any sporting events. “We are prepared to reassess where we are with infection rates and other data, the week of Feb. 22,” Banker said. “We certainly want families to be able to watch their athletes compete. But we need to offer districts the opportunity first to roll out protocols and gauge how successful they are.”