AGAWAM — Ongoing construction for the new high school has forced many Agawam High School spring sports teams almost entirely off campus, AHS Athletic Director Karen Gomez said when she spoke at the School Committee’s March 10 meeting.
Gomez said that for boys baseball, the junior varisty team will be at School Street Park while the varsity team will be at Gerry Smith Field. Softball will be played at Borgatti Park. The JV team relocated to School Street Park instead of Shea Field because it is undergoing field renovations.
Additionally, since the boys and girls track and field teams won’t have throwing facilities during construction, they will move to Southwick Regional School for home events. Varsity and JV boys and girls lacrosse teams will primarily be on the turf at AHS with practices at the junior high.
“Softball and baseball will pretty much be the two programs off campus, and volleyball will be in the AHS gymnasium. We’re trying to keep all programs and utilize the turf as much as we can within house to keep students on campus,” said Gomez.
Since many athletes are going off campus this spring, Gomez said there was a review of the school’s emergency action plans. “We realized we didn’t have a lightning procedure, especially with students at School Street Park and Borgatti Park.”
She added that there have been some changes because of new regulations from the National Federation of High School Sports, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association and the National Athletic Trainers Association.
“Statistics have shown that it’s the side flashes that have been creating more of the lightning injuries. Instead of waiting the distance for those flash bangs, if you see it, hear it, we’re going to start calling the programs a little sooner,” said Gomez.
She added that if a game is in lightning protocol at Borgatti Park, the protocol will apply to all sports programs. “Once we have it at one location, we’re going to go into lightning procedure for all locations,” said Gomez.
Another change is that a safe shelter is now only defined as a fully-enclosed building with plumbing and wiring. “The press box is not a secure facility. So, at the stadium, we’ll be using the garage, and we have to shut the door. Same thing if we’re in the concession stand area or the ticket booth or the bathrooms. Those doors need to be shut,” she said.
Gomez said dugouts, picnic shelters and gazebos are not safe enclosures. “When we know lightning is coming, we need to move those students into a safe location. We do have plans for that. At the coaches meeting, we reviewed the new procedures and we’ll be updating them throughout the season.”
The biggest challenge, said Gomez, will be to get fans to exit the stadium because many people like to stand in vestibules, dugouts or picnic shelters. “We have to ask fans to evacuate to their vehicles. If there are visiting teams, such as at Borgatti, we’re going to have to ask that those busses for the visiting team stay on location so the students from the visiting teams can have a secure location.”
Gomez said while the district’s current plans are up to date with coaches aware of them, the plans need to be communicated to the public. She said they probably will include them in some of the pregame announcements.
She added that there also will be horn system used. If an athletic trainer sees lightning at the high school stadium, he will give an air horn three long beeps — like an SOS. “That means people in the stadium will know we need to get to safety and into the lightning protocol. Then, we’ll be using electronic communication to get to the rest of our coaches off site.”
Gomez also told the committee that this year’s spring athletic numbers are low, with only 259 athletes registered. Because of that, Gomez has requested middle level waivers at almost all activities. She said athletic numbers are low across Massachusetts, but a “bit lower” for Agawam.
Asked about the wavier process, Gomez said regulations only allow students in grades 9-12 to participate in high school sports. “If we don’t have enough students who can participate to keep a program alive, we can ask for assistance from a cooperative sports agreement with another school district or within our school district by using our seventh or eighth graders,” she said.
Gomez said AHS chose to use students in the district to give them the opportunity to play and encourage them to continue with the programs in the future. For this spring, she said they have waivers for seventh and eighth grade softball, eighth grade boys lacrosse as well as an emergency waiver in for girls lacrosse and boys varsity tennis.
“The other programs right now are strong enough on their own. I can see in the very near future asking for a waiver for boys baseball. We only have 30 students signed up right now amongst the varsity in the JV program,” she said.
Gomez said that sports specialization and more club teams with different levels is likely the reason for fewer AHS athletes. “Clubs have a fit for most levels, whether it’s A, B, C, D, E or F. Clubs are expanding, so it could be a lucrative situation. We find students are taking the opportunity of clubs more so than high school sports.”
At the beginning of the meeting, Gomez introduced members of the boys and girls wrestling teams to recognize their achievements this season. The girls team won the All-State MIAA state championship while the boys team placed second in Division Two, which is the western section.
Mayor Christopher Johnson presented citations from the town to the girls wrestling team. He also gave citations to three outstanding wrestlers. Stella Christopher and Jordan Agusto, individual MIAA All-State female and male champions, and Gabrielle Ramos, who took second in the individual All-State category.
