Photo courtesy of Women's Basketball
By Rachel Galatis
The sports season might be in limbo due to the pandemic, but Stonehill College athletes are making a point to stay in shape, hoping to play sometime this year.
Women’s varsity basketball coach, Trisha Brown, has been coming to campus and teaching a section of the freshman “first-year experience” course where students learn to navigate important aspects of the school.
Stonehill’s Director of Athletics, Dean O’Keefe, said the teams are starting to practice in functional groups of five for training.
These groups can congregate as a whole team but must remain physically distant from those outside of their group.
He said each team is doing their best to practice outside so they can spread out more.
“We can have a whole team on the soccer field at a time, but there are some sports where that is hard- such as basketball. Football is practicing on two fields at once just so they have time to spread out,” he said.
O’Keefe said the NCAA is only allowing each team to congregate at a maximum of 20 hours per week, which includes physical practice, watching film, or lifting together.
But the school is taking extra precaution and only allowing four hours at a time and is reevaluated each week based on the school’s number of positive cases in correlation with team interaction.
The number of positive test results has been zero from September 4 through September 11.
Everyone who comes to campus regularly is required to go to the on-campus testing center at least once a week and those who test positive are required to relocate to the designated quarantine rooms until they test negative. Contact tracing is done to prevent the virus from spreading further.
Coach Brown said the pandemic has forced athletes to train on their own and report back to her on their progress.
“Our players are very familiar with how to improve upon their strength, conditioning and skill work and were very creative with inspiring each other, from afar, to get better,” she said.
The campus gym opened in the middle of August and has been used by students and student-athletes. Everyone is required to wear a mask and physically distance from each other.
Although Brown said she misses the daily interaction with her team, she looks forward to when they will be able to get back into the gym and practice like they did before the Coronavirus.
A sophomore member of the Dance Team, Emma Cardoso, said she misses the camaraderie her team used to have before the pandemic.
“Last year, we already knew so much; our routines, our schedules, everything. The first football game would have already happened; we would have been there performing. The dynamic of the team is very stressed now because everything is still up in the air in terms of what we are doing,” she said.
Because her coach has been unable to come to campus in person, she said she and her teammates have been trying to stay in shape by following a good eating plan and practicing on their own as much as they can.
The team held virtual tryouts this year over the popular “Zoom” app and gained five new freshmen. Cardoso is a “team mentor” and has been keeping in contact with them to make them feel welcomed.
Cardoso said that she and her upper-class teammates have been trying to keep the team, and the freshmen, as connected as possible.
“We are honestly just trying to get the team connected as of right now and make sure we are solid as a team because a) we don’t know if it's (the season) going to happen and b) it's hard to get to know each other because the freshman haven't even met each other yet,” she said.
She said that despite that the team is under a lot of stress, they are trying their best to stay positive and adapt to the new changes that athletes are facing on campus.
“2020 has been crazy for all of us so we are just trying to adjust to this new normal,” she said.
Comments