Emilee Yurish isn’t used to being home much this time of the year.

 

As the head coach for one of the premier Class AA girls track and field teams in the state at Bridgeport High School, she is used to being busy in the springtime. Same goes for her husband, Matt, who is the head baseball coach at Alderson Broaddus University.

 

But with schools closed and sports shut down as precautionary measures to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic, home is where she is.

 

“It’s odd, because March through May, it’s usually our busiest time of the year,” Yurish said. “It’s pretty peaceful but then you realize there is noting to do and nowhere you can go. It makes you miss the simple things. Like a day like today (Thursday with temperatures above 70 degrees and blue skies), my husband and I would 100 percent go somewhere and sit on the patio outside and enjoy a nice dinner. But we can’t even do that right now.”

 

Yurish and the Indians should be putting the finishing touches on their first home meet of the season today, The Connect-Bridgeport Invitational, probably with a victory. But like just about every other sporting event in the country, the two-day event was cancelled because of COVID-19 concerns.

 

There’s been a lot more wins than losses over the past seven years. Since the 2013 season, the BHS girls have won three state championship and finished as the runner-up the other four times. And there is no doubt they would have been in the hunt for the title again in 2020.

 

Fifty-five girls on the roster and in 10 different events, the Indians had a returning competitor in the Top 5 on the runwv.com preseason top returning performers list. Two of those girls, Emily Meade in the 100 hurdles and Madya McCullough in the discus, were ranked No. 1.

 

“That thought has definitely crossed my mind,” said Yurish, who did receive a bit of good news this week as she is one of the five finalists for Harrison County Teacher of the Year. “As lovely as state titles are to achieve, I don’t think in the grand scheme of things, they should be anybody’s main priority right now.”

 

Projections hardly matter at this point either. There is a slim hope that sports can resume if the schools open back up and the coronavirus pandemic is under control. That notion became slimmer on Wednesday when WV Governor Jim Justice extended the statewide school closure to April 20.

 

On Thursday, WVSSAC executive director Bernie Dolan said that if schools are back in session by April 21, some sort of spring sports season could be salvaged.

 

"There was a slim chance of having a season before (the extension to April 20),” Yurish said. “Now, I don’t know. I’m more of a realist. I try to be more optimistic with certain things but I just don’t see it happening with the way everything is.”

 

At this point, the layoff has been so long, the SSAC would almost certainly require the 14-practice requirement to go back to zero before events could take place. Yurish is in agreement that if comes to that, it should definitely be the case.

 

“I don’t blame them for that with the 14 practices,” she said. “ I know I would not feel comfortable forcing my kids to do certain things after being off a month and a half. You have to be honest about that. You can’t throw them back into the reign of fire and expect everyone to do great and not get injured.

 

“No matter how you look at it, it’s a very unfortunate series of events that we are going through. But everyone is going through it together. It is frustrating but at the same time what else are you going to do about it. Sometimes things don’t always work out the way you planned for. That’s kind of been my motto for a whole lot of things in life.”

 

Two events in particular Yurish points to that should be considered when talking about how important practice time is for are the hurdles and the pole vault.

 

Although the BHS girls and boys track teams saved their flex days until the end of February and were off and running when practice could officially begin on March 2, there hadn’t been much attention yet given to hurdles or pole vault.

 

With athletes being asked to stay home and practice good social distancing guidelines, they are kind of limited to what they can do at their house or property.

 

While it is possible a distance runner for example could get out and run in an isolated environment, most pole vaulters don’t actually have a pole vault pit at their house.

 

“It’s funny, of all the years I’ve been involved in track I have only known one person who has had a pole vault pit in their back yard and that was Claire Lohmann who graduated last year,” Yurish said.  “I thought, what a weird timing of events that this happens this year because she would be a classic example of a kid who would practice on her own.

 

“But this year, the pole vaulters, they were just getting comfortable doing drills on the runway let alone a full run. The timing involved in vaulting, it’s just not something you can pick up right away and start without practice time.”

 

Track and field as a whole presents another set of problems in regards to fighting COVID-19 issues in terms of the number of kids who compete in the sport.

 

At first, it was recommended we avoid crowds of 250 people. Then it was 100, then 10. If it started trended back the other direction, something like the state track meet would draw a much larger crowd than 250 and that’s just with the actual athletes. Bridgeport alone has more than 100 athletes on its combined boys and girls rosters.

 

If some of those guidelines were still in place I don’t know how we could get through practice without having a third of our kids there at a time. I’m not trying to be negative about it, I just think things would have had to have happened yesterday, not after April 20.

 

“It’s unfortunate and you can’t help but feel bad for the seniors. The majority of them are not going to go on to college and compete. But again, we have to learn that life isn’t always fair. It’s a good time to reflect and realize you can apply yourself to something else in life.”

 

Editor's Note: Top and bottom photos feature Emilee Yurish, while the middle photo is of Emily Meade, the top returning hurdler in Class AA. All photos by www.benqueenphotography.com