COVID and HS playoffs

Don't know about other states, but generally speaking the varsity squads here only carry 15-18 on the roster in my area.   JV is about the same.  And usually only 4-5 are pitchers with two, maybe three catchers.  I doubt a coach would hold his top pitcher and catcher out of the lineup when they may very well be needed just to qualify for post season (assuming there is a post season - this could change).   It would be a luxury if a coach was in a position to do so.

When my son played (graduated 2012) coach only pulled two players up from JV for the post season.  And to be honest, they did not see much playing time, if any.  But that was well before Covid-19.

That is if this recent wave of Covid-19 doesn't disrupt the schedule   VHSL has winter sports in process.   Fall sports (Football) starts practice in Feb, followed by a 6 game season (normally 10) with the regional playoffs beginning in April.   Spring sports start practice in mid April with regional playoffs in mid June and the state championship by end of June.

In my state (KY), most teams play their district opponents for the purpose of seeding in the district tournament, and those games are usually completed with about 2 weeks remaining in the regular season.  So most teams know their first playoff opponent by that time.

Also, the top two teams in each district (1st level in KY) advance to the region tournament (2nd level in KY), and most districts have 3 or 4 teams.  So most teams will advance to the region tournament if they win their first district tournament game.  This would give time for teams to reset in the region tournament, which uses a single-elimination format where district champions draw another district's runner-up in the quarterfinal round.

I think the way that a state's baseball playoff is set up would impact whether that strategy would even be practical.  But in KY, it is feasible that a team could win the district tournament opener, qualify for the region tournament, and have time to get the remainder of your team back.

As the Football playoffs approached in our state,  public schools, where many were not attending in person, had a decided advantage over private schools who were  largely in school in person (to keep the $)  and subject to contact tracing exclusions.  Contract tracing vs. actually getting sick is the much broader impact on play.  In our school we kept having hockey players traveling  out of state/by plane to tournaments all over the country, getting it, and knocking out kids who they sat near for 2 weeks from fall sports.  My kid had to sit out of football for two weeks because of this.   So I see contending schools potentially using what they learned about remote learning to get their best players into the playoffs by having them zoom into class starting 2 weeks prior to the playoffs, if the schools can be flexible with it.

My son's school's last day is currently scheduled for Thursday, May 20.  The last week for regular-season games starts Monday, May 24.  The KY HS baseball playoffs start Monday, May 31.  A 10-day window would be helpful because then sitting by a positive student during the last final exam would not knock a player out for the district tournament.

Very few states handle it the way Kentucky does that I know of.  Many have a game the last week of the season that could determine who makes the playoffs.  SC, this year, has decided that only 2 teams from each region make the playoffs so that eliminates holding anyone.  Except for the biggest schools and probably only 1 or 2 of them around the nation, so I can't imagine anyone having 8-9 JV players that could win any playoff game so that would be a mute point.  Our high school may have that luxury because our region will probably decided the first week of the season.  The top three teams will all play each other the first week of competition, which is stupid.  Unless there are several upsets the region seeding will be determined early but they still cannot afford to sit their catcher, don't really have a back-up and their starting pitchers all play the field.  I think it is just luck of the draw.  Our school did not have any major outbreaks this fall but one of my student's school had 3 outbreaks and they missed 3 regular season football games.

I think it will happen in college where there is a fine line between the starters and those on the bench in P5 and larger D1 schools.  That is why so many schools are keeping 40ish players this year.

In FL we are roughly 4 months away from playoffs. At least one of the largest districts has already announced cancelling spring sports. I’m hoping more studies are able to prove the safety of not quarantining as much and as long. I’m not arguing either are proven yet, I’m just being hopeful. Did see a study that said quarantining only needed to be a few days and another that said asymptomatic transmission was basically nonexistent. I have no idea about the qualifications of the people doing the study, just saw them briefly and hoped they are correct.

Son's coach was, back in early fall, considering asking all the V players to do digital learning so as to try to bubble themselves as much as possible. Son was digital in the fall, but decided (after talking with coach) to go back to in person through spring break, then convert to digital if it seemed warranted.

But, as luck (?) would have it, son caught both COVID and strep the last week of school. So he's now (in theory) clear for the season in terms of concern about catching it.

As an aside, to speak to TBP above: son was coughing starting on the 15th of Dec. Bailed on hitting/throwing the 16/17 due to sore throat, and then had a fever on the 18th. So we took him in for a PCR test. Drs said this isn't COVID, looks like classic strep. He tests for strep, and they do a PCR while we await strep results. Sure enough, strep is positive. PCR should be in by the 21st, but doubtful that there's anything there. So we don't isolate ourselves from him at all, and go ahead & have an 8-hour family movie marathon in our basement on the 19th.....and wake up to an email with a positive COVID test on the 20th.

Somehow, no one else in our family caught it, despite being around him and his strep-cough for several days. Why? Because COVID is a strange AF disease, I guess.

Could be a false positive?

I hope he's doing well. 

@JCG posted:

Could be a false positive?

I hope he's doing well.

PCR has (from what we read) an incredibly low rate of false positives. That, plus the fact that 2 other teammates seem to have caught it at the same timeframe, leads us to believe it was real. So 🤷🏼‍♂️ as to why we didn’t catch it, other than the (not small) chance that wife/daughter/myself already had it earlier in the year and were asymptomatic.

Thanks for the kind wishes, he is (so far) in great shape. Insisted on doing PG Main last week once out of quarantine, and put up personal bests in nearly everything (including knocking .6 off his 60). Nothing seems to make sense nowadays....😎

Read PCR stories about the swine flu and whooping cough and see if you still think it has a low false positive rate.

In Iowa, we played last summer. Teams with COVID were required to stop play for I think two weeks. Top seeded baseball team was eliminated because they were quarantined and unavailable for state. Our softball team had to quarantine before state regionals. They were supposed to get out on Monday and then would be available for a Tuesday game. Their opponent then had to quarantine and wouldn't be available until Wednesday and had to forfeit.

Schools that are all remote are not allowed to do athletics.

@KYDAD2023 posted:

How might teams handle roster concerns in preparation for 2021 high school playoff tournaments?  I would assume most games for playoff seeding will occur around the middle of the season.  Would coaches consider sequestering their top pitcher and catcher for about the last 10 days of the season to guard against their being unavailable in an elimination game due to COVID?

Also, perhaps they might hold back 8 or 9 decent JV players to ensure having a first-round playoff team capable of advancing?  I don't know if I making too much of this, but seeing this happen in the fall sports of HS football, soccer, and volleyball has made me think if coaches will be more proactive now.

The Problem with that is that you can't force quarantine the kids. Yeah you can not take him to games and training but he still could catch the disease in school or with friends.

Thus that measure would not guarantee availability in the playoffs.

I agree that people can contract COVID even if away from a team setting. But when one player tests positive for COVID, then entire teams do not play for a specific period of time due to close contact.  In Kentucky, I believe a JV volleyball team competed in district and was able to keep their school alive in the postseason.  I suppose that they did not practice with the varsity so those players could still be eligible.  I note that this may not be possible in every state due to how the playoffs are set up there.

Our coach usually brings a handful of JV players up for the playoffs. If for nothing else, to get experience in meshing with the Varsity team and helping out with charts. I have seen as many as 10 JV kids get called up. My guess is this year will be a year he has large number come up, just in case something happens with COVID.  There has been a handful of players on the team who have had COVID in the fall. Again in theory, that may help with the team "herd imunity". But my son is not one of those, even though we did get scare when he sat with two teammates at lunch who tested positive the same date. So hopefully he can stay clear of the rona, but I have a feeling it is just a matter of time.

At our former HS, the coach has suggested the boys opt for online school.  The main concern is the 14 day quarantine if they are in a class with someone who has it.  I believe the majority of our football team did that during season as well.

Mine is college but similar.  My thoughts were the opposite for my son.  I wanted him to test positive and get it out of the way.  My fear was that he would not get it until a critical time this fall or even into spring and would miss something that would determine his future.  He tested positive in September with no symptoms before they started practicing and scrimmaging.  One of his friends still has not tested positive and is afraid that he will test positive during the season and miss two weeks then have to start over with his pitching.  For a pitcher at their school it takes 21 days minimum from the day you test positive to get back on the mound because they miss 10 days and then have to start their preparation over from the beginning.  It takes almost 33 days to get back to full speed.  That is a killer for pitchers especially when you are competing just to get on the mound.

We were the same as Pitchingfan...wishing our son would have gotten it on break or in the fall, now we really don’t want him to get it for the reasons listed above. There has also been a long wait for the heart screening after having it.  One teammate waited almost a month for the screen.