On Nov. 19, ETHS suspended all winter sports in accordance with the Tier 3 Resurgence Mitigations presented by Governor J.B. Pritzker on Nov. 17. 

“All IHSA sports and activities will cease by November 20 for what we hope is a short-term pause,” IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson said in a recent press release. “Given the rising COVID-19 cases in our state and region, we support the Governor’s mitigations and believe it is imperative for everyone in the state to do their part in following them so that we can return to high school sports participation as soon as possible.”

Tier 3 Mitigations were officially implemented on Nov. 20, as Illinois is faced with surging COVID-19 cases across the state. Cook County, in particular, has garnered upwards of 8000 new cases per day since Nov. 5 and saw it’s largest single-day so far on Nov. 13 with over 15000 new cases. 

Pritzker’s order indicates that “all indoor group sporting and recreational activities including youth and adult recreational sports” must be paused, but that outdoor practices may continue to take place. However, “ETHS is also suspending all outdoor activities as an additional measure to help accomplish the goal of containing the spread of COVID.”

“Hopefully, we can go back sometime soon,” senior gymnast Lucy Comins said. “I know it all depends on safety, which I get, but it is really bad. We had just had our first few days of tryouts when we found out, and it’s my senior year… so it’s pretty hard to hear that [the season is] getting canceled.”

The IHSA will be reviewing the status of winter sports on Dec. 2 and again on Dec. 14 and “believes that early to mid-December will be the most reasonable target to review the status of winter IHSA sports and activities.” Should this be the case, winter sports—including boys and girls basketball, boys swimming and diving, cheerleading, dance, boys and girls bowling and girls gymnastics—would be allowed to resume in-person practices in mid-December or early-January.

The same restrictions applied to sports extend to all in-person activities which, likewise, have been suspended until further notice. 

In the coming weeks, teams will need to adjust to the changing conditions and prepare to practice should the opportunity arise.

“There’s an app that we’re going to use for different workouts to keep in shape. and we were talking about meeting [virtually] once a week, not doing conditioning or anything gymnastics related, but just being there for each other and checking up on everybody,” Comins said.