Snow causing scheduling problems

Thanks to one of the worst snow storms the Northern Virginia area has suffered in recent history, local activities directors are unsure of the statuses of boys’ and girls’ postseason basketball tournaments.

Regular season games have already been postponed and rescheduled twice in some cases and some of the ADs believe those contests could be cancelled outright in order to begin district tournament play in time to match up with the impending regional schedule.

Prince William County schools are closed today and City of Manassas schools are closed through Wednesday.

Potomac High School’s Bill Stearns said the Cardinal District ADs will “hopefully” meet Tuesday afternoon to discuss contingency plans due to inclement weather, particularly with more snow and ice in the forecast later that evening.

“It looks like we might not be in school for the rest of the week,” Stearns said. “We’re going to discuss whether to finish out the season and just not have one [a tournament] or have one and not play out these games.”

Stearns said that because none of the Prince William County Schools have been plowed enough to grant safe access, the directors will meet “maybe in Stafford or somewhere in the middle” sometime in the afternoon and finish before the next snowfall.

He added that the chances of finishing out the season and getting a tournament in are not favorable right now.

“It’s not looking good,” Stearns said. “Unless we play five or six games back-to-back, with no off-days [and no] practices, and that really hurts our teams for the region tournaments.”

The Panthers are currently in first in the Cardinal District on the boys’ side at 8-1 and the girls are in third place.

The Cedar Run, on the boys’ side, at least, is in a precarious position, too. Battlefield, Stonewall Jackson and Osbourn are all locked in a tie for first place.

“Right now,” Osbourn coach Mike Dufrene said, “the ADs are meeting [today] for the scenarios for all the winter sports. I think the No. 1 option is to finish out the season and start the tournament.”

Dufrene added that because of the new four-team tournament system the Cedar Run — and Cardinal — implemented before the season, the district should be able to get the playoff in.

“Only four teams make it, so you’re only talking two games,” he said. “We’ve got all next week to get those in. And we have some flexibility with the region schedule. We don’t have to start that right on time.”

The coach said one idea he thought made sense was to count just the teams’ records from the first round of district games and seed the tournament that way, if the regular season can’t be completed.

“I don’t think you can do it any other way,” he said. “There’s no other way to do it where it’s fair [because of remaining district games].”

Dufrene said he didn’t want to see the district have to resort to coin flips or pulling names out of a hat to determine the league’s regional representatives.

“I hope they let the kids decide it by playing it off,” he said. “[Otherwise] you take away the kids’ efforts. We just want to play.”