‘We’re all excited to be back’: Kendall County teams get back in the gym as contact days start

Mia Moore has not seen many of her Oswego basketball teammates since the summer, with the school district in remote learning all year.

So yes, she’s excited to be back in the gym.

Moore, a sophomore guard, and the Panthers rolled out the basketballs for the first time in months on Monday, the first day teams in Illinois were cleared to practice.

It was a good day all around, and not even a snow storm could stop it.

Region 2, which includes Kendall County, moved to Phase 4 on Monday, which frees higher-risk sports such as basketball for not just practice but competitions, too.

“I’m really excited, actually,” Moore said. “I’m able to get back playing with my teammates, especially the seniors because this will be my last time playing with them. It’s been pretty indecisive whether we’ll even have a season or not. Honestly, I haven’t seen some of them all year, so it will be good to have that connection.”

It appears that there will be a season, but it’s uncertain when basketball will start. The Illinois Department of Public Health announced Friday, Jan. 22, that regions reaching Phase 4 can play all sports. The IHSA is expected to provide clarity on the athletic calendar after Wednesday’s board meeting.

In the meantime, programs like Oswego’s that haven’t had any contact since October will ease back into things. Oswego girls basketball coach John Carlson said his program will let kids scrimmage if they sign a waiver, but they may use this time to focus more on individual skills.

“We’ll go a couple days this week, get them up and down the court a little bit, getting them to do some of the things we do as a program, to review some things,” Carlson said. “We don’t know when the actual season will take place, so we’ll ease back into it, keep it more program-based.”

At Plano, boys basketball coach Kyle Kee started open gyms last week. Before that, it had been a while since his team has been together.

“It will be an interesting time,” Kee said. “We have a lot of kids in our school that have moved on from sports, kids making their $300 a week at Walmart; it’s tough to stop doing that. I think for us it will be OK. We’re lucky, we have a lot of kids that love basketball that just want to play.”

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Taylor Williams goes up for a layup during the first contact day of the season at Oswego High School on Monday, Jan. 25, 2021. (Sandy Bressner - sbressner@shawmedia.com)

Sandwich girls basketball coach Chris Johnson said he doesn’t want to overload his players too early, going slowly with two days of workouts this week starting Tuesday. Like many, he’s waiting to hear the season start date and prepare for it.

“We’ll see how good a shape we are in,” Johnson said. “What we did in September and October, only going two days a week, that ended up being our summer stuff.

“This feels like open gym. It won’t feel like practice until I know we have games and we’re preparing for someone.”

First-year Yorkville boys basketball coach John Holakovsky, meanwhile, is treating this week’s contact days – Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – as tryouts. After all, a basketball season could be only weeks away.

“We figured since we’re having contact days, we might as well get tryouts done. If they push us back, they push us back,” Holakovsky said. “It should be good. I think the kids are excited. We’re all excited to be back. Obviously, safety is still first, but we’re doing the best we can to give kids a good experience.”

Indeed, protocols such as masks being worn at all times, as well as temperature and COVID-19 symptom checks, are part of the new normal. Johnson had volunteers wipe down basketballs and equipment in advance of this week.

For many athletic programs, schedules of contact days for multiple seasons’ worth of sports looks like a checkerboard of activity.

At Oswego, girls volleyball, girls basketball, softball, competitive cheerleading, boys track, wrestling, dance, badminton, baseball and gymnastics all practiced Monday.

In addition, many athletes, play multiple sports, something Kee is cognizant of in preparing his schedule. Kee said he’s changed his practice plan five or six times, not knowing how soon basketball season will start.

“Some of these kids are multisport athletes, and are going to be here at school for five hours after they haven’t done anything for months,” Kee said. “We don’t want to wear them out. I don’t want them to be sore for days and feel miserable. I think for them I just want them to just have fun, get back to structure and it’ll figure itself out.”

Moore hasn’t been completely removed from basketball while high school season was on hold. She goes to the M14 Hoops Basketball Academy in Aurora three days a week for open gym, to use a shooting machine and for private one-on-one training. But it will take a few days to get back in the swing of things with her Oswego team.

“It’s definitely going to be interesting. I have to remember all the plays. It will be a lot,” she said. “At first it will be an adjustment, especially the first week, but I have a feeling we’ll be fine by the second week.”