Athletic Directors Todd Fryberger (Cassadaga Valley), Mike Sarratori (Dunkirk), Greg Lauer (Fredonia), and Sean Helmer (Silver Creek) all said the plan for their respective schools was to approach the spring sports season with the same mentality as normal.

“I’ve told all the coaches there are no plans, future wise, to cancel,” stated Fredonia Athletic Director Greg Lauer. “We’re moving along business as usual.”

Lauer said that Fredonia’s first game on March 26, when the Lady ‘Billies travel to Iroquois High School, is currently still scheduled to take place.

The same sentiment was echoed by Silver Creek’s Sean Helmer.

Dunkirk senior Peyton Ahlstrom celebrates during a game last season. OBSERVER File Photo

“As far as I know, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties are still on track, but from the information we’re getting, anything could change day by day,” Helmer said.

Helmer added that the coaches at Silver Creek have been instructed to proceed as normal in terms of practices and team preparation, while taking the extra precautionary measures that every person has been instructed to take.

“We aren’t doing anything special,” Helmer said. “We’re just following the general guidelines everyone has seen, like washing your hands and staying home if you’re sick.”

Silver Creek’s first game is scheduled for April 1, and while the game is still scheduled, Helmer knows that everything is up in the air.

“April 1 is a-ways away,” Helmer said. “It’s definitely a concern that it won’t be played, but the reality is we won’t really known unless the governor or State Education Department makes a change. Right now, everything is up to the districts, with the advisement from the Chautauqua County Health Department.”

And while Dunkirk’s Sarratori said that all practices and scheduled events are currently still in place to happen, the Lady Marauders in particular will face a different hurdle that not many other schools in the county will have to jump.

Both the Lady Marauders basketball team and bowling team were in the middle of runs to the State Championship when the tournaments were announced as postponed on Thursday afternoon. While there’s still a lot up in the air thanks to coronavirus, the expectation is that these State tournaments will take place at some point.

Dunkirk has a lot of cross-over with athletes on the bowling and basketball teams playing spring sports like softball, creating a bit of a dilemma for the spring coaches.

“I’ve talked to a couple of the spring coaches, and they’ll be very understanding with the winter athletes waiting to finish the season,” Sarratori said. “The spring coaches would like the winter athletes to still show up to practice to stretch, warm up and make sure they’re picking up on learning, but we’re trying to limit their physical activity to make sure they’ll still be healthy when their winter sports resume.”

For the rest of the athletes in Dunkirk though, the spring season will be the same as normal, barring a call from Section VI or the school board.

“We haven’t heard anything from Section VI other than to keep preparing,” Sarratori said. “If the school board makes the decision we aren’t in session, we’ll then figure out what to do with the schedule.

With the United States still in the early stages of processing the severity and spread of COVID-19, there is still a certain amount of unknown as to if the spring seasons will actually happen. However, with no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Chautauqua County as of Friday, the expectation from the schools that their upcoming events will be played as scheduled is a sound one for now.