-
Dalante Shannon (Edmond North)
The Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association announced plans for basketball and wrestling playoffs Wednesday.
Masks will be required at all events. Gyms will be cleared for sanitization between contests unless the same two schools are competing twice in a row. Fans will be required to hold on to their tickets for reentry. Schools and the OSSAA will share cleaning costs.
Currently, the OSSAA is under Gov. Stitt’s executive order limiting capacity at indoor events. OSSAA Executive Director David Jackson said the OSSAA’s mandates are likely more restrictive in most aspects than the executive order, but the OSSAA is asking for relief regarding the number of spectators.
“In our conversations with the governor’s office and the state health department, we are hoping that we can achieve a 50 percent capacity limitation,” Jackson said. “If the governor extends his order as it is, as it’s currently written, we’re going to be limited to the four (spectators) per participant (rule), but we are looking for a 50 percent capacity limitation.”
Despite the capacity limitations, whatever they may be, Jackson said livestreams of playoff contests will likely still not be free.
As with the football playoffs, if a team cannot compete in a scheduled playoff contest due to COVID-19 issues within the team, the scheduled opponent will advance to keep the playoffs moving and not hold up other teams.
Game times will be different than previously published, and state tournaments may begin earlier in the week than usual.
“We are going to have a different look to our state tournament schedule,” Jackson said. “We’re probably going to be playing state tournament games much earlier in the week and working throughout the week. We could start possibly as early as Tuesday to work through our tournament throughout that week.”
Despite the obvious challenges facing the OSSAA, Jackson remains confident the tournaments can be completed.
“Because of what we’ve seen from our school people and their determination to want to complete our state tournaments, that gives me confidence,” Jackson said. “We had a really good meeting (Wednesday morning) with a lot of our school people, and they want it to happen… With their determination in wanting this to happen, that gives us confidence in this office that it will.”