High school basketball has walked a fine line with Coronavirus since the season opener in Novembere. Many teams have fallen victim to the pandemic, forced to go into quarantine and missing wide swaths of their schedule. However one local team is determined to avoid that fate with the postseason on the horizon.
The Memorial girls basketball team is sitting it's starters to the detriment of it's regular season record, allowing back-ups to take their place in varsity games, all in the hopes of staying healthy for sectionals, which tip-off next week.
After an admittedly slow start, which saw the Tigers drop three in a row, the reserves have rebounded to win three in a row.
Memorial head coach Lee Auker says the decision to do this was made by the team, with the seniors not wanting to see their season end prematurely.
After we played Castle, we knew that our next game with Loogootee", said Auker. "We'd be inside that 14-day window, that any close contact with another team and your season could be over. So, we just kind of talked to the seniors and presented that to them. There was two options. We could either go as normal and play and take your chances or we can sit the first seven kids and go with the five remaining players and some jv kids and finish the season. And they decided they wanted a shot at sectionals. So, they eliminate one risk and that was one they could eliminate."