With the spread of the emerging COVID-19 virus, many lives have been affected in different ways. Many people are unemployed as of recent outbreaks, and obviously schools have been shut down. Students have had to resort to online learning instead of attending school on campus. Although the average student may see this as the end of his or her classroom experience, this appeared to cut deeper for the student athletes.

Even though many of the sports were able to be completed before school was cancelled, spring sports suffered the end of their season and will not be continued. Lacrosse, baseball, softball and track and field were all sports that suffered an early end to their season.

This unexpected announcement was especially difficult for the seniors who were part of these teams. Their senior season was brought to an end, and there is nothing that they can do about it.

Senior softball player Holley Peluso said “when the team heard the news it was really hard to believe.”

“It was hard to come to peace with the fact that everything that the team had worked to achieve was taken away from us so soon,” she added.

Athletes from other sports had different perspectives to how the change affected them.

“I feel bad for my teammates who were using this last season to try and earn a scholarship and now they have no way of achieving that goal,” senior track member Sebastian Kovendy said.

Whether it was to win a state championship or to earn a scholarship to a school, many of the student-athletes were impacted in a negative way by the closing of schools. It is unfair to these athletes that they have to sit by and watch their seasons get thrown away, but safety is a priority in this time of crisis. Hopefully, things will soon go back to the way they were so that no other athletes will have their seasons stripped from them.