Life lessons with the COVID-19 extend to sports:
What can be done, how, and for how long. It is true for high school sports, top division college sports, and the professional ranks.
Major League Baseball’s World Series survives and will provide a sense of normality with a seven-game World Series, the L. A. Dodgers against Tampa Bay, even though the home sites will not be used and instead played at the new stadium in Arlington, Texas, home to the Texas Rangers.
Could that be a sense of the future? Neutral sites for the World Series? When fans can fill baseball parks, loyal team fans may not stand for it and lobby aggressively for at least two home games. The Dodgers, a young team when the Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series, were touted as a team of the future. Indeed, the Dodgers qualified the next year, 2017, and again in 2018 for the World Series, however, finished in second place each time. Following a year off, could this be the year? They battled back against Atlanta in the National League pennant chase. Tampa Bay made it once to the World Series and took second place in 2008. What of a future all-Chicago Series? It was held once, and hope remains strong. Both the Cubs and Chicago White Sox qualified for the playoffs three times in the same year, 1906, 2008, and this year. The Cubs won 116 games in 1906, however, the Hitless Wonders, White Sox, won the Series, four games to two. The teams did not play each other in either 2008 or this year.
• Northern Illinois University’s men’s basketball team held its first official practice last week. Will the spread of COVID-19 allow a complete season? The school’s football team will play its first game Wednesday, Nov. 4.
• The high school boys and girls basketball seasons are tenuous even though practice is set to start November 16. We may find out soon with an October 28 announcement in the offing.
The original sectional dates for boys and girls cross country were extended from October 17 to October 31 and girls swimming to October 24. The Illinois High School Association continually said all dates and games are fluid. COVID-19 will be the final arbiter.
• Girls tennis in high school sports ended Saturday with sectional tournaments and no State meet. The adjustment to the reality of the events was mandatory. There was no other way to understand it. The need to improvise was necessary.
The West Aurora Sectional Saturday was moved indoors to the Fox Valley Park District’s Vaughan Center where senior Meera Baid (see page 1) of Metea Valley in Aurora won the singles sectional championship following three successive years taking third place.
Emily Chiou of Neuqua Valley was second, followed by Makayla Buenafe of Oswego East, and Alex Klein of Batavia. Neuqua Valley won the team championship with 27 points followed in a second-place tie by Batavia and Naperville North, each with 18 points. The doubles championship was won by Tiffany and Irene Zhang of Naperville North.
St. Charles East won its sectional championship, Hinsdale Central won with 26 points at Lyons, 15 points ahead of York, and Lockport won its sectional.