The Rivendell Academy girls basketball team’s season under first-year coach Tim Goodwin ended on Sunday when the Raptors forfeited a rescheduled VPA Division IV quarterfinal at the Danville School.
The contest had been set for Saturday but was bumped back a day to allow Danville to complete COVID-19 contact tracing on a pair of players. They were tested after being exposed to “somebody who has tested positive for COVID-19, through a connection outside of the school or their team,” Danville principal David Schilling said in a Sunday news release.
Danville received word at 7 p.m. on Saturday that both players tested negative and would continue to quarantine per Vermont Department of Health guidelines. About three hours later, Rivendell notified Danville that it would forfeit, with its parents and athletes expressing enough reservations about the situation to choose to end the season instead.
“As that was going on, our families made the decision that they wouldn’t have felt comfortable,” Rivendell athletic director Ross Convertino said in a Sunday phone interview. “We felt the vast majority was not comfortable playing with so many unknowns.”
Rivendell has just 10 players in the whole of its program, Goodwin said. The possibility existed that some would not have been able to play on Sunday anyway due to other commitments. The Raptors’ roster also includes an athlete considered to be at a higher risk for the virus, which added another level of concern to deliberations.
Rivendell went 6-4 on the pandemic-shortened season and graduates two seniors, Adele Tilden (10.4 points per game) and Cora Day (7.1 ppg), the team’s top and third-leading scorers, respectively.
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.