In the latest twist to Anchorage high school sports courtesy of the COVID-19 pandemic, this week’s Cook Inlet Conference tennis championships won’t necessarily determine which Anchorage players will advance to the state championships.
Players and coaches from two teams — the Service Cougars and the reigning state co-champion South Wolverines — are quarantined this week and will miss the CIC championships Friday and Saturday at the Alaska Club East.
They are scheduled to be released from quarantine Oct. 9, the day before the state tournament in Anchorage. Six of the quarantined players — the boys doubles teams from each school and the mixed doubles team from South — will compete that day in playoff matches. At stake will be tournament berths in the Oct. 10 state meet.
Curtis Nelson, the South High coach who is among those quarantined, said players who competed in last Thursday’s dual meet between South and Service will miss the CIC tournament Friday and Saturday. Players who didn’t attend the Thursday meet are not quarantined, he said.
Typically, the top finishers at the CIC meet earn spots in the state tournament. This season, the original plan was to advance the top two finishers in each division — boys singles, girls singles, boys doubles, girls doubles and mixed doubles.
On Wednesday, the conference tweaked that plan to accommodate players whose path to the state tournament was blocked by the quarantine.
All of this weekend’s tournament winners will advance to state. All of the runners-up will go too — unless they play in a division where a quarantined players would have earned No. 1 or No. 2 seed for the CIC tournament based on their regular-season results. In that situation, playoff matches will be held next Friday, the day the quarantines end.
Chris Ruggles, a South High administrator who oversees the sport of tennis for the Anchorage School District, presented the plan Wednesday in an email to coaches and activities principals.
“We feel this is the best-case scenario to provide ... quarantined players, who were seeded #1 or #2 from conference play, an opportunity to compete for one of the two state (berths),” Ruggles said in the email.
“Regionals 1st place winners will receive an automatic state (berth). Regionals 2nd place will play off against any team/player that cannot compete in regions that would’ve had a #1 or #2 seed if their team was not quarantined.”
The CIC announced its seedings Wednesday night, and South’s boys doubles team and mixed doubles team were awarded No. 1 seeds and Service’s boys doubles team earned the No. 2 seed.
The South mixed doubles team will play the CIC runner-up next Friday for a chance to go to state.
The South and Service boys doubles teams will square off next Friday, and the winner will face the CIC runner-up that same day, with the winner qualifying for the next day’s state tournament.
“I do feel like this gives everyone a fair opportunity with the circumstances given,” Ruggles said in the email to coaches and activities principals. “I understand this proposal isn’t perfect, and there are justifications in both directions, but it does provide some clarity moving forward.”
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