By Taylor Hauser-
This spring has not proved to be very friendly to student athletes across Iowa. Track meets, tennis meets, golf meets, and soccer games have been cancelled and postponed statewide due to weather. Rain, cold, and even snow have kept athletes from practicing and competing at Mount Vernon High School. Twenty-three events have been cancelled or postponed this spring between track, tennis, golf, and soccer, including most recently, the track meet that was to be held May 3 in Marion, which has been postponed to Monday May 6 in West Delaware. “It makes it difficult because we try our best to have a good schedule going into the season that doesn’t have a whole lot of wiggle room anyway. Once you start having postponements you really get into running out of opportunities to play these games,” said Activities Director Joe Wallace.
“I just hate not being able to play my sport,” said senior tennis player, Rachel Reimann. Five tennis meets have been cancelled due to weather, and countless practices have been cancelled. “In the first place we don’t get as much one-on-one time with the coach because there are so many of us, but the bad weather has not helped at all. It really stinks when the end of your senior year is rained on,” Rachel said.
Golf is another sport that suffers greatly when it is raining. “Because of the bad conditions at the beginning of the year we did not practice outside for a good two weeks,” said senior Luke Hansen. “It affected us as a team in the first couple meets, but as we started to play more and more meets we began to shoot lower and lower. So the more practice has led to better scores as a team and individually,” Luke said.
Both the boys’ and girls’ soccer teams have spent several practices in the gym. “You’re limited on your space inside. In indoor, the ball is a lot faster so it helps with foot control and being a better player with your first touch and passes,” said senior Bridget Martin. “With soccer we still feel that we can get every game in,” Wallace said. This means the teams might have a few weeks with three or four games, but no games have been cancelled yet. “If we have any more postponements we might have to start cancelling games,” Wallace also stated.
One sport that has suffered several cancellations and lost many chances to compete is track. The teams in combination have missed eight meets, most of which they will not make up. “It’s really hard to get all those same schools back to the same meet, because everybody’s schedules are so different,” said Wallace about not being able to make up track meets. Missing meets and having bad weather for practices has definitely affected the team. Ashly Pena, a senior shot putter, said “Everything has to be done inside. It’s harder for runners to work on handoffs and the halls are too small for us to throw. Sometimes we have to do practices on the weekend.”
Through all the bad weather at the beginning of the season, the Mustangs are competing again. This past week, they were able to hold all scheduled events, with the exception of one girls track meet. “The most important thing is the safety and well-being of our athletes. We don’t want to put anybody in harm’s way,” said Wallace. Several games and meets have been rescheduled to be played in upcoming weeks.