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Page A-46 Shelton-Mason County Journal — Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021
Sports &0utdoors
v
North Mason High School football players run on to the field before a fall
2019 home game at the Belfair school. Journal photo Justin Johnson
State, WIAA set metrics for prep sports return to play
By Justin Johnson
justin@masoncounty. com
With updated guidance from Gov. Jay Inslee and
the state Department of Health, the pathway to
the return of high school sports in Mason County is
clearer.
Inslee’s two-phase “Healthy Washington” corona- .
virus reopening plan allowed low— and moderate-risk
outdoor sports to being training Monday. Inslee’s
After long year, return of high school sports in sight
0 say the past 10 months
I have been a “long.
year” would border on
understatement.
Back in March, when the nov—
el coronavirus rapidly shut down
the sporting world, it seemed
impossible to me that its effects
would still be felt even a few
months later.
Yet as we near the one-year
. mark since the first reported
case in the United States landed
By JUSTIN
JOHNSON
plan groups each of Washington’s 39 counties into
one of eight geographic regions. Mason County joins
Kitsap, Jefferson and Clallam counties in the N orth-
west Region. The metrics used to determine corona-
virus activity from the combined four-county region
will be used to determine what phase the region is
In. .
Aniong those sports that were allowed to fully
resume training are girls soccer and boys and girls
cross country. In addition, other sports were allowed
in Snohomish County, our entire
way of life is still upended.
Making things worse has
been the uneven response to the
pandemic.
While the. three West Coast
states have remained in lock-
down since March, which in-
cludes shutting down in-person
schooling and education-based
sports, those states immedi-
ater to the east had no such
restrictions.
The Rocky Mountain states of
Idaho, Montana, Utah and N e—
vada all returned students to the
classroom and teams to the field.
The scene was especially jar-
ring on state’s eastern border,
in places such as Pullman or
Clarkston, where just across
the border in Idaho, high school
teams played complete seasons
in Moscow and Lewiston.
In my home state of Utah,
Where I have several good
to resume individual or small~group activities in
pods of five or fewer.
On Jan. 6, the Washington Interscholastic Ac—
tivities Association —- the state’s governing body for
high school sports and activities — changed its com-
petition calendar to move the start of traditional fall
sports to Feb. 1.
The updated activities calendar, combined with
see SPORTS, page
friends coaching, almost all com-
pleted their season — including
one whose team captured Utah’s
6A state soccer championship.
’ Meanwhile, here in the Ever—
green State, our fields and gyms
have been mostly empty and
'dark since the shutdowns began
10 months ago.
Over the past few weeks,
signs have emerged that it might
see POST, page AL47
i