In the winter, activities are bound to get canceled due to the weather conditions. This year, though, there have been more cancellations than usual with back-to-back snowstorms and freezing temperatures. The weather conditions and the amount of games and practices being canceled have made playing a winter sport more difficult this year.

“The toughest part of the weather in January was trying to get into a rhythm,” said head girls basketball coach Clay Carlton. “It seems like any time we would start to string together a couple good practices, we would miss a game and have a few days off. We had stretches from late December to early January where we went 14 days without a game and right after that we went 10 more days without a game.”

Due to the harsh weather conditions, there were two boys wrestling meets and one girls wrestling meet canceled. There were also two boys basketball games canceled, with one game postponed, while the girls’ team had two games canceled. All four teams also had multiple practices canceled, and the athletes noticed the effect.
“We definitely missed out on some practices that we needed. This is where our schedule gets tough in the year, so going into big games and only having a couple of practices that week because of snow is hard,” sophomore Carson Jurey said. “You get out of shape because you just sit there all day too.”
The weather not only has affected the number of games and practices canceled but has also affected how the athletes get to and from practice.
“Getting to practice is a little bit scarier,” said junior Max Egr. “I have to drive on a dirt road, so it takes a little longer. I have to be a little more cautious.”

Although there were drawbacks due to the weather, it affected the teams in different ways.

“I think it has affected us positively and negatively,” Carlton said. “Positively in the sense that many of the girls are able to rest nagging injuries but negative because of the lack of rhythm we have been able to get into.”
Although there were many negatives as well as positives, the teams were able to adjust to the changes.
“We’ve had longer practices, and they’ve been more jam-packed,” said sophomore Jenna Benjamin. “We’ve been getting more reps in, and we’ve been running more plays. We also talk less before practice and explain things a lot faster just so we can get more reps in.”
While the winter sports season can be tiring, the extra interruptions made the athletes more excited to be back in that routine.
“I was pretty eager to get back in there,” Egr said. “It really drove my workout since I haven’t been in the weight room for six or seven days. I was just really excited to get back in there.”