Published March 19, 2020
NORTH READING — Tryouts for the high school spring sports season were originally scheduled to start this week as the third Monday in March has been the traditional start-date for decades. However, due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) voted last week to delay the start of the season.
Spring season games were originally slated to begin on Monday, March 30. Now, it appears the season may not start until April 27 but would still end by June 20.
In a statement posted on miaa.net Monday night, the MIAA stated that during a conference call among its Board of Directors they decided to extend the start of the 2020 spring season to April 27. “Respecting the fluidity of this situation, this decision will be revisited in the near future,” the MIAA further stated.
Last Thursday, the MIAA announced that based on “available information from numerous health agencies” the start of the spring season would be postponed to at least March 30, which was “in the best interest of our student-athletes, schools and communities.”
But on Sunday night, Governor Charlie Baker ordered a ban on public gatherings of 25 or more people, prohibited restaurants and bars from serving patrons on their premises thereby limiting sales to take-out, drive-thru and delivery service, and extended the closure of all public schools to at least Tuesday, April 7. This meant the MIAA had re-evaluate the spring sports start date again.
The April 27 start date also remains fluid and could change. The MIAA had already canceled all winter state championship games scheduled for this past weekend and subsequently named state finalists as co-champions in the affected team sports.
