Brutal winter weather leads to athletics cancellations
ST. JOSEPH, Mich. -- The brutal winter weather has already thrown local high school sports schedules into chaos.
In Saint Joseph Michigan, the boys and girls high school basketball teams haven't played in more than two weeks, with 5 straight games postponed by the snow, ice and dangerously cold temperatures.
There’s nothing like playing in front of your home fans, they’ve always got your back!
But, unfortunately, for both the boys' and girls' basketball teams at Saint Joseph High School, they haven’t been able to experience that home court advantage since last season.
The chaos began on a November morning for Saint Joseph high school athletic director Kevin Guzzo.
"First snowfall of the year, first lake effect snowfall of the year, early November, Monday morning, I was actually in East Lansing but got word that our roof was leaking, some snow got on the roof and something happened and we had some water damage on our floor, originally we thought we could salvage it and get by," said Guzzo.
The bears home court...gone.
But, thanks to some quick work by Guzzo, the school's insurance, and many others, the Bears scrambled to make things work, moving their hoops operations to the school's fieldhouse.
Unfortunately, there was no preventing this current stretch of winter weather, which has resulted in two weeks of postponed games for the boys' and girls' basketball teams.
"Yesterday. when I made the announcement that we were cancelling again, you could almost feel this 'ugh' throughout the entire school, it's not something that we want to do, because we know our coaches and kids have been practicing hard, they're ready to compete, but we will always make sure that it's safe for them to be on the roads," said Guzzo.
While it would be easy for members of the bears hoops teams to let their frustration get the best of them, sophomore guard Lauer Wright says they're not taking the simple route.
"I think that might be the whole beauty of it because we can't control the weather, we can't control any of that but we can control how we react to it and so if we want to put our energy into reacting negatively I think that's just going to bring us down as a program and will bring us down as individuals," said Lauer Wright, Saint Joseph high school sophomore guard.
But for Lauer and her teammates, there's a potential light at the end of the tunnel, with the Bears in line for a home game next week, which would be their first matchup back in their true home gym.
"It definitely adds a little bit of excitement and something to look forward to, because it's not just another game, it's first game back at the comp gym, first game back on our normal rims that we're used to, and I mean this floor's super nice too so we're super excited," said Wright.
Both varsity teams are slated to return to the competition gym this upcoming Tuesday, as long as everything goes according to plan. The freshman and JV teams are scheduled for a home game Thursday night.