WEST LEBANON — The end is near … but not quite here.
Granite State high school athletes engaged in NHIAA spring postseason games may soon be able to breathe easier as a result of recent action by the association’s Executive Council. The body voted on Thursday to relax its mandate on face masks for playoff competition, reducing it from a requirement to a recommendation to reflect loosened restrictions at the state level.
It isn’t the cut-and-dried scenario it may appear to be, however. The NHIAA’s decision applies only to its upcoming state tournaments, and individual towns and school districts still hold sway in regular-season contests. Teams will still need to communicate in advance of contests and be understanding of each others’ situations.
“I think it’s super-complicated,” Hanover High athletic director Megan Sobel said on Tuesday morning. “It just adds another layer of confusion in some ways, because they started off with no mandating for playoffs but will discuss it. We all made decisions based on that. The positive was we were aware that it would be reviewed, and everyone was sort of waiting for that.
“Now, at each school, everybody has a process in terms of deciding to do that. Some are far more complicated than others.”
The Council’s move returns the NHIAA to the status of last fall, executive director Jeffrey Collins said in a Monday phone interview. The NHIAA made masks mandatory during the winter postseason as sports moved indoors and COVID-19 cases increased across the Granite State, with a promise to review the situation come springtime.
“Look, it’s been a heck of a year,” Collins said. “We’ve been trying to put out there things to get kids to be actively engaged in sports in the safest manner they can. We’re trying to let the data and science guide some decisions. When the council made those decisions in March, the infection rates were X; they went up after that. And now we’re at a place where those rates of infection are similar to those when we were having in tournaments last fall. We’re essentially back to what we did in the fall for tournaments.”
The NHIAA state track and tennis tournaments are next week. All other championships start the week after that.
Sobel believes experiences from fall will help schools get through the remainder of spring. Although masks might start to come down within the lines of a field, athletes are still expected to cover up and maintain social distance on the sidelines.
At Lebanon High, things remain in flux. Athletic director Mike Stone is meeting with SAU 88 Superintendent Joanne Roberts and other affected parties on Wednesday morning to determine what direction the school will go next. On Tuesday, Stone pointed out that the city and school district still have mask mandates in place.
“I guess that’s in until next week, when they meet as a town to determine what is going to happen,” he said. “We’re waiting on what other folks have to do. We obviously want to do what they say they want us to do, so right now nothing changes.”
A heat wave is also something to consider, Sobel added. Afternoon temperatures will reach the mid- to high 80s by Wednesday, and that could make breathing through a mask more difficult than it already is, particularly on Hanover’s artificial turf field.
“I think our trainer’s keeping an eye on it; she’s obviously at those games to watch out for that,” Sobel said. “Masks or no masks, heat becomes an issue. Two weeks ago it was 40 degrees, and now it’s 90. It’s an adjustment.
“It’s one of the reasons we started and kept wearing masks; we were anticipating what the NHIAA may or may not do for playoffs. We’re prepared because we have been wearing them and practicing in them and playing with them.”
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.