BY STEVE WALENTIK
Press & Sun-Bulletin

                   

The playing fields from Owego to Oneonta have been linked during what was supposed to be the first two weeks of the spring sports season. 

 

The bond between them, at least on most of the past 14 days, has been their vacancy. 

 

Precipitation -- frozen or not -- has forced local high school teams into a daily holding pattern, waiting to see what bad news the next forecast will bring.

 

Of course, uncertain spring conditions are nothing new in the Southern Tier, but one gets the sense that this year has been worse than most. 

 

"I don't think I've ever experienced anything really like this that's caused us to wait this long," said Susquehanna Valley softball coach Dale Cook, who has guided the Sabers program the past decade.

 

Cook's club has been more fortunate than most. SV keeps tarps on its baseball and softball diamonds, which has allowed them to play twice on days when most other teams were waiting for their fields to dry out.

 

Of course, there's nothing anybody can do on days such as Monday that bring unseasonable snowfall, forcing teams to take shelter in the school gymnasium. 

 

"It's been hard on everyone," Union-Endicott baseball coach Ed Folli said. "It's hard to be enthusiastic about baseball when we've been playing indoors as long as we have."

 

It's equally challenging for coaches to keep their teams game- and meet-ready when practices are confined to basketball courts and hallways. 

 

"There's just not space to handle the 30 or 40 sprinters we have," Vestal track coach Jim Cerra said. "They're trying to run hallways indoors. The long distance kids cope a little better because they don't mind getting out there with the sweats and the hats and the gloves, but even then, it's not good practice."

 

Chenango Valley track athlete Amanda Fedish, a junior, said one of the toughest things about practicing inside is working on handoffs for relays. But that's not the only thing bothering Fedish, one of the top runners in the Southern Tier Athletic Conference. 

 

"It's really, really upsetting because I look forward to having a meet and we're not able to have one because, 'Oh, it's snowing,' or 'Oh, it's raining.' I would love to get out on a track and run. The first time I ran a whole 100 was at the meet (CV's opener a week ago Thursday against Susquehanna Valley)." 

 

And there's simply no accommodating the discus, pole vault, high jump and long jump in a gym setting.

 

Softball and baseball coaches have faced similar challenges. They can't set up full fields inside gym walls, hit with real balls or test their outfielders with pop flies when the ceiling gets in the way.

 

Tennis teams have been stuck weightlifting and running instead of working on serves because the courts have been soggy or snow-covered. 

 

"You can't work on the skills it takes to win," Vestal tennis coach Sharon Slottje said. 

 

Slottje's fortunate to have a roster full of kids who play year-round and work on their games indoors at the local clubs. Most coaches are not so lucky.

 

It's also been near impossible for players and coaches to sustain any kind of rhythm when they have played. 

 

"We just had one match last week, and we had a big upset, a good upset," Windsor tennis coach Jeff Yaun said of his team's win against defending East Division champion Susquehanna Valley. "We couldn't build off that." 

 

Of course, the biggest weather-related problems may lie ahead as athletic directors try to rebuild a six-week schedule to make it fit into a four-week calendar. 

 

"I'm fearful that we're going to lose games," Folli said. "That would be the biggest thing of all for us. We have a very aggressive schedule. I would hate to see that happen. We're playing some of the top teams in New York state. We're bringing them in here to play them."

 

Cook said he's worried that as the rainouts mount teams will panic and play games on fields that aren't ready. 

 

"I guess the biggest threat to increased injury would be poor field conditions," said Donald Nash, a Endicott physician who treats a lot of sports-related injuries. 

 

Nash has seen fewer sports injuries in his office this season because, as he said, "Kids just aren't competing. So much has been canceled. I expect them to increase this time of year, but we're still just getting colds and earaches." 

 

That could change if the schedule crunch forces teams to play four or five games in a given week. Softball and tennis may be the sports best suited to get everything in because they're less physically taxing. 

 

"Right now, I feel that we're probably two weeks behind at least in training," Cerra said. "I think we can make that up. I just hope that by making it up, we're not going to burn the kids out."

 

Overwork may be of greatest concern for area baseball coaches. 

 

"At the high school level, we don't have the pitchers to play five days a week," Folli said. "I don't have eight pitchers. We better watch. We have to be sensitive to these kids."