Everyone around the world is affected by the Covid-19, especially the athletes who’s seasons were cancelled due to the closures of schools. On April 8, Governor Kate Brown officially closed all schools for the remainder of the year. This left all spring athletes at Lake Oswego High School with no season, something they had looked forward to all year.

Junior, Olivia Kovac, was excited for her second to last year on the track team. “It has been really rough because a lot of the athletes have been training all year and because of the pandemic none of us have been able to compete and all of the hard work seems to have gone to waste.” The season was over before it even started. “We’ve been doing workouts on our own, but we can't meet in person so we can't do anything to truly finish the season,” says Kovac.

Track is not the only sport affected by the closure of schools. Freshman, Jordan Woolf, was getting ready to compete at her first state competition as part of the dance team. “Covid-19 caused our last competition of the season to be cancelled and the rest of our practices and end of the year party to be cancelled as well. It caused the seniors not to be able to compete in their last state ever and not have a true close to the season.”

Luckily, the dance team has been using Zoom to keep them connected. “We talk about the weekly updates for dance, and how everyone is doing. But, most importantly they tell us updates on what’s happening for tryouts, if it would be possible to compete virtually, and any OSAA/DDCA new rulings. We also are having a virtual end of the year party this month, and have an end of the year party scheduled for June,” says Woolf.

School sports are not the only sports that have been affected by Covid-19. Anslee Bennet, a student at Lake Oswego Junior High, had her dance season cut short by Covid-19. “Due to Covid-19 all of our practices, performances and competitions are basically done for the season which is really disappointing. We were also supposed to go and perform in Disneyland and train in LA at the end of the year but that also got canceled."

"I understand that it is all for our safety but it is still heartbreaking because most of my team will be leaving next year for college.” Bennet dances at the local dance academy, Lake Oswego Academy of Dance. The studio has found a way to keep dancing. “Our studio has been doing online classes on zoom every week that we can take to keep in shape. It is nice to see everybody through there but it’s way different when we are actually together as a team dancing,” says Bennet.

It's disappointing to see so much hard work leading up to a season go to waste. With no end of quarantine in sight, it's refreshing to see teams continue to get together even if it's just over the phone. Though their seasons have been cancelled, athletes still hold out hope for some closure to their short seasons.