OSAA fall sports championship games will not take place

Senior midfielder Skylar Rector handles the ball against Gresham. Photo courtesy athletics secretary Stephanie Mathews

Posted March 2021

By Jonas Hobson-Reeves

Staff Reporter

All sports currently being played in the state of Oregon, including football, soccer, volleyball, and cross country, will not include state championship games.

The shortened season which involves all the traditional fall sports started March 1 and the schools will be given the freedom to decide what to do in their last week. The schools will "coordinate and execute local/regional culminating events at their discretion,” the OSAA executive board decided last month. The board decided against trying to conduct a large-scale event during a pandemic, instead opting to leave the final week of the season up to the schools themselves.

“The OSAA executive board does not want to put any undue pressure on schools to participate in a statewide event that could potentially place their students and school community at risk,” the OSAA stated to The Oregonian. “Recommendations from the OHA advise restricting unnecessary travel between counties, especially when they are at different risk levels. The group felt that requiring schools to travel across the state with the potential for overnight stays for events is not prudent at this time.”

The decisions they made during this season will be reviewed when the next set of sports comes along, at that time the OSAA said it will review and take into consideration the status of the Coronavirus pandemic at that time.