The IHSA has released guidelines to winter sports after the Governor earlier announced three regions, including the southern Illinois Region, rolled back to Tier 2 mitigations and then to Tier 1. That means low-risk sports including boys and girls bowling can begin practice immediately and will begin competition within their geographic region on a future date to be determined by the IHSA.
Basketball is still in the high risk category and can only being intra-squad scrimmages with mitigations. The Board of Directors is once again scheduled to meet on January 27th. Executive Director Craig Anderson said that he anticipates they will set competition dates for low-risk winter sports prior to that meeting.
The SIJHSAA Board will meet on February 1st to make further decisions on volleyball and bowling. Also basketball, golf and track will be given more structure on what will go on with those sports. The board has made the decision to start bowling and volleyball seasons as they are permitted in some of the regions. As of right now games in volleyball and bowling in junior high is set to start February 1st and practices for basketball with drills and intra-team scrimmages are permitted but no games.
On the heels of that announcement, Franklin Park will be having open gym for volleyball for 7th and 8th graders today from 3:30-5 and then tomorrow for 6th graders at the same time. Tryouts will be Friday and Monday from 3:30-5pm.
The boys basketball team will have open gym for their 6-8th graders tonight from 5-7 with more direction being given by head coach Ethan Maxey after that.
