Technology game plan salvages La Conner High spring sports

The spring sports season at La Conner High went from being virtually cancelled to being resumed virtually.

La Conner teams are using technology to remain active and take part in virtual competitions even as schools across Washington state are closed for the rest of the academic year due to the coronavirus outbreak.

It was initially thought the La Conner High spring sports calendar wouldn’t flip beyond a just-for-fun mid-March scrimmage between the school’s baseball and softball teams, though some held out hope.

“Keep working on your skills at home,” Braves baseball coach Jeremiah LeSourd said at the time, “and hopefully we’ll get to play again in May.”

That won’t happen, but La Conner sports programs won’t be sidelined, either.

That’s because school administrators and coaches soon began exploring how technology can be used for sports competition to go forward during a time of campus closures and social distancing.

Necessity, in this case, has truly been the mother of invention.

And innovation.

“Each coach has a different approach and activities for them to choose from,” La Conner High Athletic Director Kathy Herrera told the Weekly News.

Herrera and those coaches will meet today (Wednesday) at 3 p.m. via the Zoom video-conferencing platform to share updates on the directions their programs are taking during the COVID-19 shutdown.

“This is a unique time,” La Conner golf coach Jamie Carroll said last weekend, “but the district letting us do this will get the athletes to be able to keep practicing their skills and I believe keep the whole season from being lost.”

Carroll said he and assistant coach Galen McKnight will pose weekly tasks to their golfers to help them keep their skills sharp.

“These will most likely consist of putting and chipping challenges that they can do around the house, trick shot challenges and practice time,” Carroll said. “We’re confident that we can still get better and be better prepared for next year even with everything going on.”

The Lady Braves softball team has worked on individual skills, viewed instructional videos and communicated via texting and other technology, said head coach Loran James, who had held workouts with players in Spokane during the State 2B Girls Hardwood Classic in advance of a season that didn’t launch.

La Conner High head track coach Peter Voorhees and his assistants have used Google Classroom and Zoom to maintain contact with their athletes, who have been training apart, and encourage them to enter on-line virtual meets.

“We’re providing physical, mental and character challenges in the form of a bingo-style game,” said assistant coach Yvonne Naughton, herself an accomplished ultrarunner. “Basically, the goal is to complete the most challenges in a week and we’re offering prizes as an incentive.

“The physical challenges include runs and strength workouts,” she added. “Other challenges might be something like eat vegetables, complete your schoolwork, offer to help someone and get at least eight hours of sleep for five straight nights.”

Voorhees has also invited guest speakers to address various track-and-field topics with video conferences over the next six weeks.

La Conner alum Matty Lagerwey, a multi-event high school state title winner now at Western Washington University, spoke last week about her college track experience. Record-winning Irish ultrarunner Sinead Kane will speak to the team this week, Naughton said.

Virtual track meets allow entrants to videotape and electronically verify results in a host of events, some being traditional sprints, jumps and throws. Other contests, such as a medicine ball toss and pull-ups, are more a reflection of what can be measured remotely during the virus crisis.

“There are a few alternative events,” said La Conner parent and physical therapist Lynette Cram, “that are basically things they can do at home.”

The virtual spring season will allow La Conner athletes to earn letters in their respective sports, La Conner Superintendent of Schools Dr. Whitney Meissner said.

To that end, said Voorhees, it keeps “this season alive and student-athletes engaged.”

“The nicest thing about the virtual season,” Naughton said, “is the feeling of being connected despite the necessary social distancing.”

Carroll agrees.

“The La Conner School District has been awesome and is allowing us to hold virtual practices with our athletes,” he said. “It’s a weird time, but this approval from the district in my opinion was made in the best interest of the students.