High school teams ease into practice mode

Zak Withrow (center) goes through passing drills on Wednesday June 3 2020 with his Pea Ridge Blackhawks teammates. Go to nwaonline.com/200604Daily/ to see more photos.
(NWA Democrat-Gazette/Flip Putthoff)
Zak Withrow (center) goes through passing drills on Wednesday June 3 2020 with his Pea Ridge Blackhawks teammates. Go to nwaonline.com/200604Daily/ to see more photos. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Flip Putthoff)

PEA RIDGE — Jeff Williams would have loved to use this week to help implement the offensive and defensive schemes he will have Pea Ridge’s football team employ in the fall.

Instead, the Blackhawks’ new head coach could be seen with a bottle of disinfectant in one hand and a towel in the other Tuesday morning as he disinfected weightlifting equipment between sessions, the result of protocol under new Arkansas Activities Association covid-19 guidelines that began Monday.

“We’re under weird times,” Williams said. “But me coming with a new job, it’s all about building relationships, meeting our kids and getting them back into the routine.

“We’ll be able to do some fundamental stuff — as much as we can because we didn’t have spring practices. The kids are getting back in here and things are getting a little more normal. That makes a big difference, but obviously there are obstacles like wearing masks and gloves and wiping things down. The main thing we want to do is be safe for our kids.”

High school sports teams were allowed to start workouts Monday, the first such activity since the coronavirus pandemic forced the AAA to implement a special athletic dead period in March. In addition to the guidelines set by Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the Arkansas Department of Health, the AAA also has issued “acclimatization reopening guidelines for the close contact team sports, which includes basketball, football, soccer, volleyball, wrestling, cheerleader and dance.”

Those guidelines include the Department of Health’s earlier directive, as well as stipulations that no contact equipment be worn, the following of wet bulb globe temperature-to-rest ratios, as well as practice guidelines. Athletes may practice a maximum of five days per calendar week and practice lengths will begin with one hour for the first two days and work up to a maximum of 3 hours for days 14-25.

“The only thing we have done with our doctors on our sports medicine advisory committee is — since the first time in the history of interscholastic athletics — students have been de-acclimatized,” said AAA deputy executive director Joey Walters. “Normally, you’re worried about acclimatization, but students have been de-acclimatized by not being in practice for 11 to 12 weeks. There’s no model out there currently for de-acclimatized athletes.”

Williams said he had about 75 players that showed up Monday for the first workout, with only one person being advised to stay home because of fever. Nobody was sent home because of a high fever when asked the routine health questions.

“It was really good,” Williams said. “You never know what to expect on the first day, but there were some timing issues we had to fix. I’m sure everybody else in the state of Arkansas is having to find out how much time to take to check in the kids, get warmups in, making sure you’re safe and cleaning bars.

“Conditioning-wise, we’re easing them in on getting back into shape. We don’t want to rush anything and get somebody injured. So we’re kinda easing into things and getting them back into a rhythm. The kids are great and responding well.”

Meanwhile, Bentonville High boys basketball coach Dick Rippee said he experienced “the fastest hour in 12 weeks” when he welcomed his team back to practice Monday. In order to properly use social distancing, Rippee had his varsity players stay in the school’s east auxiliary gym while the sophomores and junior varsity players were in the west gym.

Most of the Tigers’ practice focused on volume shooting as Rip-pee split his team to three players to a goal and each player keeping a safe distance from the others.

“We’re doing a lot of shooting drills with three people,” Rippee said. “It allows us to have good spacing where we can use the side goals without bumping into each other. We’re trying our best to follow all the protocols and guidelines.

“We tell our guys every day that we need to make good decisions. It takes one positive test to go back to where we were with a round of quarantine for 14 days. We’re doing shooting, doing ball-screen stuff and reads where we’re doing one on zero. We’re doing the best we can, just like everybody else.”

Springdale Har-Ber girls basketball coach Kimberly Jenkins held off until Tuesday to hold her team’s first practice in order to allow the coaches to make sure everything was ready for the first workout. She said the Lady Wildcats, who had 18 players report for practice, are still in a tryout phase because there were no previous tryouts.

Jenkins admitted it was hard at times not to go and give some of her players a hug after not seeing them in person for almost 3 months.

“Our culture at Har-Ber, we believe in touching,” Jenkins said. “We’re always giving fives and tens. Even at practice, we’re giving tens before getting a drink. We’re big on touching and how that converts to chemistry on the court. So it was really hard to not hug their necks or give them a high-five or just pat them on the back.

“But it was really good to see our kids. I think we were all starving to see them face to face instead of on a Zoom or FaceTime.”

Bentonville West volleyball coach Julie Rowan used practice time Monday through Wednesday to allow girls to get the feel for the volleyball again in a gym before the Lady Wolverines hold tryouts for next fall’s team. She originally planned for 12 girls in each hour-long practice session, but that was quickly expanded to 24 girls each hour along the three gyms.

Rowan, however, said this could be the only time West will practice until next month with hopes that some restrictions can be lifted.

“There is a lot that we can’t do,” Rowan said. “Thankfully, we got an email Sunday that two girls could share one ball. If we hadn’t received that, there would have been a lot of passing the ball off the wall to yourself or toss the ball to yourself and hit it.

“Nobody wants to play volleyball to pass the ball back and forth. They want to play. You feel like the worst coach ever because it feels like you are breaking all the rules. You shouldn’t have these long lines of people waiting to hit, but you have to because only the setter and the hitter can touch that ball. It’s kind of rough.”

Henry Apple can be reached at happle@ nwadg.com or on Twitter @NWAHenry.

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