County tourney has first COVID casualties
- Updated: January 18, 2021
Positive test within Weaver’s boys team forces cancelation of game with Piedmont; Faith’s Ware out after contracting virus, both Faith games off
CALHOUN COUNTY TOURNAMENT
Monday’s games
Girls: White Plains 47, Saks 18
Boys: Saks 62, Donoho 54
Girls: Pleasant Valley 35, Piedmont 33
Boys: Piedmont def. Weaver, forfeit (COVID)
Girls: Alexandria def. Faith Christian, forfeit (COVID)
Boys: Jacksonville Christian def. Faith Christian (COVID)
Exhibition: Piedmont boys 64, Ohatchee 38
Exhibition: Alexandria girls 70, Jacksonville Christian 34
Exhibition: Jacksonville Christian boys 64, Pleasant Valley 61
Tuesday’s games
Boys: White Plains vs. Saks, 4 p.m.
Girls: Weaver vs. Donoho, 6 p.m.
Boys: Oxford vs. Alexandria, 8 p.m.
By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today
Organizers of this year’s Calhoun County Basketball Tournament had built in contingencies because of the COVID pandemic hoping they wouldn’t have to use them.
They had to use them Monday — a lot.
Three games on an MLK Day at the Calhoun County Tournament that’s usually packed with impact were canceled and teams awards forfeit victories because of COVID issues within the competing schools.
The 4 p.m. boys game between Piedmont and Weaver was been canceled after at least one positive test surfaced with the Bearcats’ roster. Both of Faith Christian’s games — girls vs. Alexandria and boys vs. Jacksonville Christian — also were after Faith coach Schuessler Ware contracted the virus.
Host principal Jody Whaley said he was “prepared to do the right thing” in terms of refunding fans who didn’t get to see their teams plays because of the forfeits.
Fortunately, teams that were eliminated on Saturday stepped up to fill the void. Piedmont’s boys played Ohatchee, Alexandria’s girls played Jacksonville Christian and JCA played Pleasant Valley after the original game gave JCA coach Tommy Miller his 400th career boys basketball coaching victory.
“I feel like that guy they found buried under the hot lava when Mount Vesuvius blew up Pompeii,” Weaver coach Beau Winn said. “I know the boys do, too, because we’ve been playing some good basketball. I’ll be fine. I hate it for them; we were coming in ready to get after it.”
The 12th-seeded Bearcats were coming off a 61-52 first-round victory over Ohatchee Saturday that was Winn’s first County Tournament victory as a head coach. Winn said the cancelation wasn’t due to anything that happened that day.
UPDATE: Tournament officials have authorized Ohatchee to play Piedmont in a 4 p.m. exhibition at JSU. Piedmont advances to play Jacksonville Wednesday at 8 p.m. regardless of the game’s outcome.
The team’s 10-day COVID quarantine affects the Weaver players and coaches, but not its boys junior varsity, junior high and girls varsity teams. The junior varsity team likely will be coached by junior high boys coach Jake Crain or girls varsity coach Gary Atchley during the quarantine period.
“Everybody is trying to find what’s normal now,” Winn said. “That’s like trying to find the Lost City of Gold. But we were getting there.”
Winn contacted the coaches at Piedmont and Ohatchee as a courtesy to apprise them of the situation. The Bearcats played Piedmont Friday night in the Bulldogs’ first game back from their own COVID quarantine.
The Bearcats will be eligible to return from quarantine Jan. 27 or 28. They will have to make up two area games with Pleasant Valley and one with Ohatchee that had been scheduled during the quarantine period before Feb. 2.
There is something the Bearcats could have to look forward to as they return. Piedmont came off its quarantine Friday and hit 16 3-pointers in an 86-40 rout — of Weaver.
“That’s much my hope,” Winn said. “That we can come out and not miss a beat and come back and still be able to play at the level we were getting to.”
The players on some teams had mere minutes to get back into game mode. Pleasant Valley accepted its game with JCA at about 5:00 — after already putting in an intense 2 1/2-hour practice.
“I told them when we got to the gym, guys, we’re just going to have to be ready at a moment’s notice,” Piedmont coach JoJo Odam said. “We’re going to play when we play, we’ll practice when we practice. It’s a fluid situation and we just have to go with it.”
Faith’s Ware sidelined
Faith Christian coach Schuessler Ware won’t get a chance to coach both his teams tonight or face his former team if the boys beat Jacksonville Christian in tonight’s 8 p.m. game because he has contracted COVID-19.
Ware confirmed the diagnosis to East Alabama Sports Today this morning. He said the boys and girls teams were still going to play their scheduled games.
The girls beat Wellborn in their opening-round game Saturday and are scheduled to play Alexandria at 6.
“I’m very disappointed,” he said. “I was looking forward to advancing. I thought we had a game plan. I thought we were peaking at the right time.”
Dexter Copeland will coach the boys team until Ware returns. Ryan Ware, the coach’s son, will coach the girls team.
UPDATE: Tournament officials awarded Alexandria a forfeit, but the boys game is still on schedule to play. Jacksonville Christian will bring a small squad to play Alexandria in an exhibition in the 6 p.m. slot.
Teams officials said Ware, 65, didn’t feel any symptoms until Sunday night after the team’s shootaround. Ware said it knocked him to the floor Monday while he was going in for his morning shave.
He was confident he didn’t expose the players, he said, because “I wasn’t up on them. I’d always be back at a distance,” and it appears to be the reason the boys game remains on schedule. Team officials assured the Faith parents Ware has been “very faithful” with wearing his mask and other COVID-19 protocols.
The Lions’ game tonight is an intriguing matchup on a number of fronts. The teams are area rivals and have split their season series. Even more interesting, if Faith wins they would play Anniston, the program Ware coached in legendary status for 19 seasons before retiring in 2016. If JCA wins, it will be Thunder coach Tommy Miller’s 400th victory as a boys varsity basketball coach.
“I told (the players) how bad do y’all want to play those guys,” Ware said. “All of them said they wanted to play them. I told them you’ve got to take care of (JCA) first.
“The (Anniston) game would have been different. They weren’t going to beat me no 40-50 points, I guarantee you that.”
Copeland shared his head coach’s disappointment.
“We wanted to play; we wanted to showcase the talent that we’ve got,” he said. “The boys were eager to get up here and play and eager for a chance to go against Anniston on Wednesday. That’s what were really looking for, the chance to play against Malcolm (Carlisle, a former Faith player) and Spoodie (Antonio Kite), but it’s just how the world is, we’ve just got to adjust and live with it.”
Contingencies have been in the works for the tournament for weeks in anticipation of a disruption.
Once they reared their heads during Monday’s schedule, teams acted quickly to help fill the gap and keep the games going.
“A lot of thought has gone into what we’re trying to do here,” Whaley said. “We had a Plan A and a Plan B for basketball and we’re having to play out some of the Plan B. A lot of thought has got into what we’re trying to do here.
“I’m so lucky to work where I work. When you’ve got coaches like that who can go and find a bunch of kids who will play this late, that’s as good as it gets. That makes my job easy. And I don’t have to give a bunch of folks their money back.”
Then he excused himself to take care of some more basketball business.
“Let me go back to work,” he said. “I’m just excited we’ve got an 8 o’clock game tonight.”
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