Bearcats on hold
- Updated: March 31, 2021
Weaver baseball team goes into COVID-19 quarantine, committed to playing area games when it returns
By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today
The Weaver baseball team’s season will be put on hold for the next two weeks as it goes into COVID-19 quarantine, but every effort will be made to play the area games it has remaining when the team return.
Weaver principal Andy Keith confirmed the shutdown Wednesday. He called it a “contact tracing issue” and while team officials declined to specify the number of players affected, Keith said the “majority of the baseball team” was quarantined.
“It is a tough issue, but that’s kind of where we’re at right now,” Keith said. “We’re going to have to deal with it. We’ll do what’s required of us.”
The Bearcats were scheduled to complete their area series with Saks at home Thursday. The Wildcats are aware of the situation. Saks won the series opener Tuesday 10-0.
The Bearcats also have an area series with Wellborn and a regular-season game with Jacksonville Christian on the docket before their scheduled season-finale April 9 against Jacksonville.
Since the quarantine only affects the varsity players, the Bearcats could bring up developmental players to put a team on the field, but they don’t even have enough available players in the program to do that.
“It’s frustrating,” Weaver coach Jamie Harper said. “None of us have had the season we wanted to have as far as wins and losses go, then you throw this on top of it; it puts a damper on things. It’s very frustrating. You don’t want anything taken from you. You want to go out on your own terms.”
Harper said several of his players got emotional when they learned of the quarantine, fearful of not being able to finish out the season for the second year in a row. That’s not a given.
The quarantine is expected to last until April 14. The AHSAA requires all area games to be completed by April 17 in order to submit playoff admission forms by April 19. The state playoffs begin April 23.
Harper anticipates finalizing a revamped schedule by the end of the week.
“What I think is going to play out tonight when I make my phone calls, barring a major catastrophe, what I plan on doing is get the area series in and get our players a finality to their season that they didn’t get to have last year,” he said.
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