LISTOWEL – The Listowel District Secondary School Lightning basketball team’s season has come to starts and stops due to the COVID-19 restrictions.
Michael Chmatil, coach of the Lightning senior boys’ team said in an interview with the Banner that “it feels great to have the kids back in the gym. We get to see a different side of students that we don’t see in the classroom.”
Tryouts for the team (which included Grade 11, 12 and fifth-year students) took place in late November.
“It was difficult for us to select the teams,” said Chmatil. “We didn’t have as many people available to play as we normally would because of things like COVID-restrictions and co-op.”
The original plan for the team was to take 10-11 players, however, the final team count ended up being 13-14 players. This was due to the circumstances and the positive attitudes kept by the players.
The first game of the season took place on Dec. 8 to rival school, F.E. Madill Secondary School in Wingham, with a 62-32 loss. After that defeat, the Lightning didn’t get an immediate chance to practice a different approach to take future wins, as COVID protocols and a rise in case counts got the better of the season and a break had to be initiated.
Many weeks later, the season picked up again on Feb. 23 with the first official game back against St. Marys DCVI in Listowel, with LDSS taking the win with several three-point shots made in the 51-31 game, proving their confidence and competitiveness as a group. At that point, the Lighting record improved to 1-1, which made it difficult to foresee the future success rate of the team.
Although the Lightning were back to playing games and conducting practices again, there were many COVID-19 restrictions still in affect. LDSS played in a specific bubble, playing only 3-4 teams in the Huron-Perth Athletics district, while continuing to wear masks when on the bench and in the school. Also being fully vaccinated at the beginning of the year was a mandate and COVID contact tracing was used.
However, players are now finally allowed to take their masks off when they are playing on the court, courtesy of some of the restriction lifts, and coaches are now able to see the true enjoyment of basketball on the players’ faces. Along with having to adapt with the constantly-changing impact of the pandemic, Chmatil has a different approach to coaching.
“I think we focused a lot more on that responsibility side of things, as opposed to the competitive side of things,” he said, believing that a player needs to be a good student, along with coming to practices and being responsible overall.
Another game was played on March 2 in Listowel, with a 55-34 win for the team. The season finished up March 7 with two games. The first road contest against St. Anne’s C.S.S. resulted in a 57-33 victory, and the second against South Huron taking place at LDSS. The result of the game was a 51-31 loss for the Lightning.
Although the season has been tough for the team, with all the COVID detriments and being unlike any other season, Chmatil said when asked about an abrupt ending that, “I think we’re just happy to play,” as finding ways to get games in and understanding where the season was headed, or whether the season was going to go through or even restart, had been a struggle.
The team was grateful to play the game again after many barriers and challenges they faced throughout an atypical season.
