MIL plans for modified spring sports season

Informal scrimmages for most sports; conditioning only for water polo, judo

After the league's athletic directors met for several hours Friday and Monday, the Maui Interscholastic League announced on Monday a basic but wide-ranging plan for the return of high school spring sports.

There will be no official MIL competitions for any sport, just "informal scrimmages only," the league said in a news release emailed to The Maui News. Judo and girls water polo will be limited to conditioning workouts only.

The announcement comes less than a week after the Hawaii state Department of Education gave schools with in-person or blended instruction the green light to begin team workouts starting Monday and released guidelines for athletics to return.

"Upon review and discussion of the HIDOE Return to Learn: Guidance to Restarting Athletics Guidance Document, the Maui Interscholastic League (MIL) has made the decision to modify Spring season sports which includes baseball, golf, judo, softball, tennis, track and field, surfing, girls water polo and boys volleyball," the league release said.

The MIL officially canceled all fall and winter sports in early January due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"This modified season will include conditioning, workouts, practice and informal scrimmages only. Judo and water polo will be limited to conditioning workouts only," the release continued.

MIL executive board president Jamie Yap, the Maui High School principal, said the league is following DOE guidelines and that there will be "four to five weeks" of conditioning and practices before any of the scrimmage games or competitions can take place.

"There's two parts to reopening athletics, there's two criteria you have to meet," Yap said. "One of the criteria is the schools have to be in a blended or face-to-face model, and the second criteria is based on the DOE's metrics. ... We look at it on a weekly basis, every Wednesday afternoon is the update, which leads to the decision for the following week."

The state Department of Health reported Maui's COVID-19 positivity rate as 2.5 percent on Monday and a two-week average of 17 cases per day. Those numbers currently allow conditioning workouts for all sports under the phase 2 metrics from the DOE.

Maui is just a tick off of the DOE's phase 3 guidelines of 1 to 2.49 percent positivity rate and a seven-day average of 2.1 to 5.1 cases per 100,000. Phase 3 allows "team workouts and practices for low to moderate risk sports" while allowing contact and equipment.

"Each MIL member school will make decisions on which sports, when each begins and how workouts occur based on the HIDOE Return to Learn: Guidance to Restarting Athletics," the MIL news release concluded.

Due to existing travel restrictions, it is unlikely Molokai and Lanai will be able to participate in any competitions, Yap said.

"Probably not," Yap said. "We are very aware that all of these practices can start, but because of travel restrictions, their sense of scrimmaging, any kind of competitive games, will be limited to the old inter-squad scrimmages, not with other schools."

The window for any kind of the scrimmage games described in the news release is slim when considering the four-to-five weeks of workouts necessary after a long layoff for student-athletes and graduations beginning in mid-May.

Maui High and King Kekaulike started blended on-campus learning last month, Baldwin begins on-campus learning by welcoming seniors back today in a phased-in plan by class, and Lahainaluna will not return to campus until March 22.

"The schools will be making that decision (on when to play scrimmages), but it will vary from school to school," Yap said. "It will depend on the athletic directors' ability to get all of these workouts in. It's between four and five weeks of workouts before some sense of competition or scrimmage will occur after that."

The MIL's private schools have been using on-campus learning since August.

Yap said that it will be up to each school to schedule any scrimmages, but must let the MIL know in advance so that the league's liability insurance can be locked in place.

"It is the MIL's understanding that state championships will not occur due to travel restrictions," Yap said. "That being said, the MIL has also agreed, the athletic directors have also agreed that because there is a short window of competition that the league will not schedule league games for a championship. So, there will be no league championships."

Without the league making schedules, schools can decide to play games against other school's teams as long as the conditioning protocols have been met and sufficient notice is given to the MIL to have insurance in place.

"The MIL will be informed of any type of scrimmage that may occur," Yap said. "If it's like Seabury and St. Anthony that want to play, it would really depend on the availability of that field with the county."

Yap said that fields at Maui High, Maehara Stadium and Eddie Tam complex are on the MIL's list of venues for baseball scrimmages. The use of those venues for scrimmages must work around practice time for teams as well.

Yap added that there might be enough time for as many as three track meets to be held -- the county announced last month that MIL practices can begin at Satoki Yamamoto Track & Field Facility inside War Memorial Stadium.

"I see that happening provided the DOH cases go down and schools get through all the workouts, paperwork that's needed for parents, you know, all the protocols, all the other details that go with it -- coming on campus, leaving campus, coaches, and all this other stuff," Yap said. "I think that can occur, track meets can occur at different venues. So, I still believe it's promising."

Yap said other than girls water polo and judo, every other sport on the spring docket has a realistic chance of happening in the casual form outlined by the news release on Monday.

"Everything else will have to be worked through," he said.

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.