9:30 a.m. UPDATE:
The Arkansas Activities Association released a statement around 9:40 p.m. that stated that all spring sports and activities have been suspended starting Sunday.
"Due to growing concerns over COVID-19 virus, the AAA will suspend all spring interscholastic competition starting Sunday, March 15, 2020 until Monday, March 30, 2020," the news release said.
The AAA said that it will reassess the situation on March 30.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Most Garland County high schools are continuing their seasons as scheduled, despite the fact that many college and professional games have been postponed or canceled due to coronavirus fears.
Hot Springs and Lakeside have canceled some of their upcoming games. Hot Springs baseball game against Cutter Morning Star today has been canceled, and the girls and boys soccer teams will not be traveling to their upcoming tournaments, said athletic director Rodney Echols.
"Everything right now is as planned as far as here, all home activities," he said. "The things that we have canceled -- girls and boys soccer are supposed to travel. They were going to tournaments. Girls are supposed to go to Texarkana; boys are supposed to go to Van Buren, and I have counseled travel plans for us to go to those places. And then baseball supposed to play a home game tomorrow; I did cancel that. Then next week we canceled everything going into the Little Rock area."
Echols said that baseball and softball were scheduled to play conference games at J.A. Fair on Tuesday as well as both soccer teams. Soccer was also scheduled to play at Maumelle Charter on Thursday, and the middle school soccer team had a game scheduled against St. Anthony, all of which have been canceled.
Lakeside has had to cancel a tournament appearance at Shreveport, La., due to travel restrictions issued by the state earlier this week.
"We were playing down in Shreveport in a tournament over spring break, which we had to cancel because we can't leave the state for 60 days," said Lakeside athletic director Don Pierce. "It's a state thing, so we had to cancel that."
The Arkansas Athletic Association announced Thursday afternoon that the state basketball finals for today and Saturday have been "postponed until further notice."
"After speaking with the Arkansas Department of Health, Arkansas Department of Education, and the Governor's office, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the rest of the Basketball Finals," said AAA executive director Lance Taylor in a news release. "Our number one priority will always be the safety of our student-athletes, coaches, officials, and fans."
Tickets for the games will be refunded by the AAA, and fans with tickets for games today and Saturday purchased from schools or at the convention center should contact the school where the tickets were purchased or the convention center ticket office. Tickets purchased online will be automatically refunded.
The general consensus by athletic directors in Garland County is that they want to follow the guidelines the state has issued regarding the coronavirus.
"We're kind of at the mercy, and I'm assuming that this will come down from the governing parties," said Fountain Lake athletic director Marc Davis. "We're waiting on the governing body of the AAA and the State Department of Education to make a decision. So if those governing bodies decide, of course, we'll follow suit and do what we need to do."
Jessieville superintendent Melissa Speers said that her district will be "acting on the advice of the governor and the Department of Health and the Department of Education."
"If we have to close school, we will not be attending sporting events," she said. "We won't be having them, and we won't be traveling to them. ... Right now it's just so fluid. It's day-to-day, sometimes hour-to-hour, looking at things and examining things and making decisions, but again, we'll be acting on the advice of the governor's office and the Department of Education, who is working closely with the Department of Health."
Lake Hamilton athletic director Rick Waters said that while no plans have been made to cancel any events, he would like guidance from the AAA as to how schools that regularly play in the affected counties should move forward.
"We're not hearing anything from the AAA," he said. "We're concerned now, what about our softball games that we've get scheduled with those schools next week and the week after. Are they canceled? If they're conference games, how do we do the conference games? Stuff like that, so we're not hearing from anybody over there yet. Until we get to conference, we're just kind of at the mercy of the weather and going ahead and play until somebody tells us different."
The AAA stated that it "will release more information about spring sports" today.
Athletic directors for Cutter Morning Star and Mountain Pine were unavailable for comment at presstime.
Sports on 03/13/2020