Seneca High School board votes for 'no' on winter basketball

The Seneca High School Board of Education on Wednesday night voted to follow guidelines issued by the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Illinois State Board of Education, meaning the Fighting Irish will not play basketball until those guidelines change.

According to Athletic Director Steve Haines, the school will allow its boys and girls basketball teams to practice — which the Illinois High School Association is allowing beginning next Monday ahead of a Nov. 30th start to the season under its revised, COVID-19 schedule — but only under IDPH guidelines.

Seneca joins a growing list of schools including Marquette, St. Bede and Ottawa which have definitively said they will not participate in the IHSA's proposed winter basketball season, which the IDPH and ISBE have both recommended not be played at this time due to concerns of spreading the novel coronavirus.