Winter weather delaying end of high school hoops, start of spring sports seasons

Wednesday normally would have marked one of Jeff Wilson’s favorite days of the year, the start of softball practice at Polk County High School.

But with a massive winter storm setting its sights on the area, the official opening of the spring sports season will have to wait a few days.

“Some of the teams were already starting on the 17th,” said Wilson, the school’s head softball coach and athletic director. “Now it looks like that will be the first date for everyone.”

Winter weather continues to play havoc with area sports schedules, perhaps nowhere more so than with Western Highlands Conference athletics. A basketball regular season that would normally have concluded Wednesday night now remains uncertain, and the 2A Western Regional wrestling tournament slated for this weekend is also up in the air.

Wilson also serves as the president of the WHC and spent much of Tuesday on the phone with conference coaches and athletic directors. Both Polk County and Hendersonville have two games remaining in the conference basketball season, with Avery, Madison, Mountain Heritage and Owen each having one. Mitchell has completed league play. With tournament and playoff positions still undecided, those games need to be played before the conference tournament begins next week at Hendersonville.

One possible scenario for Polk County is as follows:

– Play at Hendersonville on Friday, at Owen on Saturday afternoon, tournament begins on Monday

But with almost a foot of snow forecast to arrive Wednesday, play by Friday may not be possible. So a second scenario would be:

– Play at Owen on Saturday afternoon, play at Hendersonville on Monday. Conference tournament delayed until Tuesday, with finals on Saturday.

All conferences must report team records and playoff automatic qualifiers to the North Carolina High School Athletic Association by Saturday, Feb. 22. Thus delaying the tournament any longer than Saturday isn’t feasible.

The Western 2A Regional wrestling tournament is currently scheduled for Saturday at Owen. But Wilson said a heavy snow could affect that as well.

For now, it’s a wait-and-see game to see how much snow the area receives and how quickly it melts.