CCSD suspends all high school sporting events
The Clark County School District announced Thursday that all sporting events have been suspended effective immediately because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The announcement follows the cancellation of all NCAA winter and spring sports, and the suspension of professional sports league seasons.
“Hopefully this will be a short-term thing and we can get back to sports as normal,” Liberty athletic director Rich Muraco said. “I know the kids are disappointed, especially the seniors, but this falls in line with what the NBA, NHL, MLB, NCAA and (places like) Disney have done.”
As of Thursday, there were 11 presumptive or confirmed positive cases of coronavirus — eight in Clark County, two in Washoe County and one in the Carson City area.
The suspension puts in jeopardy the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association state championships for spring sports in May. The baseball, softball and track championships are scheduled for the North region. Boys golf, swimming and diving are set for the South region.
Last week, CCSD imposed a ban on traveling out of state, but several teams have played games this week. Bishop Gorman was hosting a softball tournament that included CCSD, Washoe County School District and out-of-state schools.
Gorman, which is not part of CCSD, was working on a plan for how to proceed, assistant athletic director Domingo Rivera said Thursday, but added that the Gaels plan to abide by the CCSD ruling.
“We’ve got 10 out-of-town teams in the tournament. We wanted to give them every opportunity to play because they paid to be here,” Rivera said.
Faith Lutheran’s baseball team was scheduled to travel to St. George, Utah, for a tournament this weekend. Since Faith Lutheran also is a private school that doesn’t fall under the CCSD’s purview, it plans to have its teams practice during the CCSD suspension.
“We have respect for the CCSD decision, and we’re never going to criticize anybody for taking precautions,” Faith Lutheran CEO Steve Buuck said. “We sent a note out to families tonight that our teams are going to practice as long as we’re holding school on campus. If we go to online learning, we would re-evaluate that.”
Contact Jason Orts at jorts@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2936. Follow @SportsWithOrts on Twitter.