NE10 cancels remainder of sports season

Photo courtesy of the Northeast-10, Twitter

By Katie Rayner

During a time when the baseball and softball fields are flooded with sounds of walk-up songs and laughter. When W.B. Mason Stadium is filled with the cheering of the Women’s Lacrosse team, and track is anxiously awaiting their next meet -- there is now silence.

A silence that is unprecedented and unnerving. A silence that has never happened in history. There are no spring sports happening. Anywhere.

All of Stonehill’s spring teams now sit at home, participating in online classes, and staying close to family during these times of quarantine after the Northeast 10 board decided to suspend and cancel all spring sports on March 18.

“The NE10 Conference Council of Presidents has unanimously extended the suspension of all team activities and competitions (in all 24 NE10 sports) on member institution campuses to the end of the 2020 spring semester and all NE10 Spring Championships have been canceled,” the press release from the NE10 board said.

The announcement came around 9 a.m. on March 18, but all Stonehill teams were notified the day before by their coaches.

“I appreciate the NE10 letting the coaches know about a final decision before they put it on social media because some athletes found out their seasons (and in some cases careers) were over through twitter, and that just isn’t right,” John Orzechowski, a senior Marketing major, and outfielder on the Baseball team, said.

As Stonehill teams dealt with the grief of their season ending, seniors grappled with the new reality that their careers were potentially over.

“I was filled with so many emotions, sad, angry, shocked. I cried initially just in the sense you sacrifice a lot for your team and the sport you play. It’s crushing to know you don’t get to experience or feel those rewards from all the work you put in,” senior tri-captain of the Softball team, Kazi Walker said, “especially for the seniors, that’s ten plus years of work just all done with no warning. It’s hard to grasp. It’s even harder to understand it's out of everyone’s control,” she said.

Before ultimately cancelling the entirety of the season, the NE10 was one of the few conferences in New England, and in the United States, to only postpone the season until April 13, giving athletes hope for the continuation of their season.

“I think the athletic department and the NE10 handled the whole situation well. I was happy that Dean O’Keefe was fully supportive of the spring sports season and wanted us to keep playing,” Caroline Casey, a senior outfielder on the Softball team said.

The news of postponing the season came on Thursday, March 11. The Baseball and Softball teams still had remaining games to play in Florida, and with permission from the NE10, the Softball team was allowed to finish what would be their final two games of the season.

“I really appreciate the solid communication with the athletic department, especially while we were in Florida playing games. The NE10 had a difficult decision to make, and although I am extremely upset, I believe they made the right call for the safety of players, coaches, staff, and fans,” Jill McInitire, a senior on the Women’s Lacrosse team said.

The spring sports teams will now face a different kind of spring for the first time in their lives. All teams were sent home upon their return from Florida, in conjunction with the rest of Stonehill’s students.

All athletes are adjusting to a new lifestyle, figuring out what life is like without 6 a.m’s, and early morning lifts. They are also learning how to be teammates from long distance, as they are constantly signing onto whole-team FaceTimes, simply just to feel together again.

“There are times where you might not want to wake up early for a practice or do that condition test, but now knowing that I’ll never do that again makes me wish that when I was in those moments I didn’t complain and take it for granted,” Casey said.

Now the next time these athletes return to campus to gather their belongings they must return their uniforms and equipment in vans, parked outside of the Sports Complex, to prevent the spread of any illness, limiting contact with each other.

For underclassmen they wait until the fall to play the sport they love again, but for the seniors, they wait to see what the next chapter of life brings them.

“Never take playing for granted. Never take being with your friends for granted. I think being present and living in the moment is so important and unfortunately it takes times like this to realize how lucky we all are to get to do the things we love,” Walker said.