PIERRE – The winter high school sports season in South Dakota will start on time. The motion for this was passed unanimously Wednesday by the SDHSAA Board of Directors at its regular meeting. The plan, similar to one devised for fall sports, was devised by the same task force as was earlier utilized.
Notably, if a competitor tests positive for COVID-19, his or her school must notify any schools of whom that person competed against for the previous 48 hours.
Schools are being asked to “encourage and support” mask-wearing by spectators and determine crowd restrictions by evaluating local conditions.
Wrestling carries many protocols for safety, including the requirement by teams to develop pods, where a group of athletes interacts only within their pod. Should someone in the pod become infected, all members of the pod would be considered for exposure. Coaches should be “specifically limited” to demonstrating to a singular group of athletes. Should they interact physically with wrestlers in multiple pods, everyone with whom they came in contact would be considered for exposure after a positive case.
Events in the regular season will be limited to 112 participants from no more than 12 teams in one day in one facility. 24 female wrestlers can attend in one place.
Schools are being asked to consider severely limiting or restricting attendance at tournaments so that wrestlers would have ample space to socially distance when not competing.
In basketball, teams now will have a minimum of 10 games to qualify for postseason. A team would be granted 30 power points for each game’s worth of difference between actual games played and the minimum.
As in volleyball, a region with two teams or one when region play begins would be paired with another region, and that “super region” tournament would determine four qualifiers for the SoDak 16.
Among safety measures in gymnastics are competitors being required to have a Ziploc bag containing their own chalk, instead of the usual common bowl.
For this season only, SoDak 16 volleyball matches in Classes A and B this coming Tuesday will be played at the higher seed, unless the venue is unavailable or not large enough. That motion passed unanimously and was approved due to COVID-19 concerns.
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