MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Governor Jim Justice announced at Wednesday’s COVID press briefing that the new target date for the start of the high school winter sports season will be March 1.
Previously, the target date for the start of basketball, swimming and wrestling preseason practices was January 11, with competitions set to begin within two weeks after that date.
“We’ve got a lot of time left in the school year to be able to play and have the sports,” said Governor Justice. “Just think of the numbers we will have vaccinated at that time. Absolutely, we are very hopeful that this thing is going to turn and we can absolutely go to where we can have the sports indoors. And we can do that starting March 1st.”
On November 13, Governor Justice announced that winter sports, some of which had already begun preseason practices, were halted.
The WVSSAC recently released a revised winter and spring sports schedule. State basketball championships were pushed into early April. All spring sports championships were pushed into the month of June.
Winter sports are underway to some degree in Ohio and Virginia. Winter sports are scheduled to begin in Kentucky, Maryland and Pennsylvania in early January.
