The scene at Smith Middle School on Thursday for the Chapel Hill versus Cedar Ridge varsity volleyball match was unlike anything high school athletics in North Carolina has seen before.
Athletes wore masks at all times — even during play. Spectators were barred from the gym. Parents watched along via a Facebook Live feed being streamed from a phone.
“It’s strange,” said Chapel Hill High School athletic director Tim Bennett. “It’s different but it’s right now the right thing for us to do, because like I said earlier, the safety of our athletes and our coaches and our officials is most important.”
High school athletics have now resumed in Orange County and across North Carolina, with an untraditional schedule due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While normally fall is a vibrant scene for high school athletics, only volleyball, field hockey, and cross country have been cleared to resume competition by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association. For many schools across the state, sports like football and basketball have been pushed back to the spring.
Cedar Ridge swept Chapel Hill in three straight sets (25-23, 25-21, 25-12) on Thursday in both teams’ second match of the season. The game was played at Smith Middle School as Chapel Hill High School undergoes a $72 million renovation to its own gym.
Chapel Hill head coach Ross Fields said his team is still getting adjusted, having been hampered by COVID-19 restrictions in the offseason.
“Usually we have months,” Fields said. “We have all summer where we can have open gyms workouts.”
Fields added that normally his team scrimmages with other opponents multiple times before the start of the regular season. This year, none of that was possible due to the pandemic.
High school athletics were also limited by the uncertainty surrounding this upcoming season. It wasn’t until August that the NCHSAA approved a calendar for the 2020-21 high school sports year, with many sports having their seasons shortened.
“We were prepping for a July workout and getting our kids back and letting them start doing some workouts and things kind of changed on us,” said Bennett. “So since really August, we’ve been planning for the return of athletics. So now it’s here. Field hockey started last week with games, cross country started yesterday and then volleyball started tonight.”
With the return of high school athletics came the multitude of restrictions in place to ensure the safety of players, coaches, and officials. Fields said they were given a guideline of restrictions by the NCHSAA, which the county then modified and added additional safety precautions.
The biggest change was the exclusion of spectators in the stands. Bennett said that while other districts across the state are allowing fans in the stands, they made the call to ensure the safety of participants. Instead, parents and fans were given access to a Facebook Live stream to watch virtually.
For volleyball, the balls were wiped down between sets and individual chairs were placed six feet apart on the sidelines. When teams gathered for a timeout, players distanced themselves from each other.
“We were inspired by a lot of the universities,” said Fields. “We looked at their bench area and how does it play out? We told with our players, and especially with the masks that local university, like UNC-Chapel Hill had been wearing masks the entire time in volleyball. So we told them they were just like them.”
While volleyball, field hockey and cross country are the only sports active in Orange County right now, others are right around the corner. Basketball and cheerleading workouts have resumed and the first practices for swimming and diving are set to begin this week.
For now, COVID-19 restrictions and safety precautions will be in place in Chapel Hill and Orange County. That includes athletes wearing masks at all times — even during competition. Fields said although its strange, it’s something everyone will have to get used to.
“That’s something they’re still getting used to, but everyone has that same, that same, you know, not problem, but the same weird thing that everyone’s is trying to adjust to.”
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