Spring Hill sports return with golf, cross country events

By Maurice Patton

Spring Hill’s fall sports received an apparent reprieve from the Maury County Public Schools central office.

After an announced two-week pandemic-related suspension of the school’s athletic activities on Sept. 9, workouts resumed Thursday for football, cross country, golf, girls soccer and volleyball, with all those teams returning to competition as soon as Monday.

The most immediate result is that the Raider golfers will be allowed to participate in the District 11-AAA tournament Monday at Franklin Bridge (formerly Forrest Crossing) and the cross country team will run in Tuesday’s Maury County Championships at Ring Farm.

“It’s definitely a good thing,” Spring Hill athletics director John Farmer said. “Those golf kids will get to play in their district tournament. If Wednesday had been their first day back, their season would have been over.

“We got back just in the nick of time.”

Idle the past two weeks because of COVID concerns, the Spring Hill football team will travel Friday to Mt. Juliet and cap a full week of athletic activity at the school. Practices resumed Thursday for all fall sports teams, with the Raiders to play in Monday’s District 11-AAA golf tournament and run in Tuesday’s Maury County Championships cross country meet. (Photo by Sarah Yow / SM-Tn Sports)

Farmer said, despite the edict from MCPS director Michael Hickman, the subsequent information submitted from Spring Hill athletics did not support their continued inactivity.

“We had all our fall coaches keeping track of their athletes — if they were coming up with any cases, showing any symptoms,” he said. “We told the central office, we weren’t developing any cases. I wasn’t making any decisions; I was just relaying information.”

Farmer and his coaching staff have encountered some difficulties rescheduling the contests that were missed over the past 10 days, but remain hopeful of doing so in some cases.

“We’re not having much luck with it,” Farmer said. “Other teams took their wins and went on. Marshall County did reschedule our volleyball game. We’re appreciative of that.

“It’s getting down to crunch time. It’s hard to get all those games in. But I understand both sides of it.”

The development of having a couple of practice days before resuming competition Monday wasn’t lost on Farmer.

“I’m glad they got to practice toward the end of last week,” he said. “Without it, you’re going to be rusty and it opens the door for injury. I’m glad we got that couple of days.”

The football team will pick its schedule back up with a Sept. 25 trip to Mt. Juliet.

Maurice Patton is the editor for Southern Middle Tennessee Sports. E-mail: mopattonsports@gmail.com; Twitter: @mopatton_sports.

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