With the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic going global, parts of the country have been shut down or limited in their ability to work for over a year now. Sports, from collegiate, to national, to local, have either closed or returned with safety precautions to ensure the protection of all those involved.
Mercer was no exception with the entire college going virtual since the end of March 2020. Activities such as sports, art galleries, and school events have been completely shut down.
However, during the spring semester of 2021 the country has started to re-open, and with precautions in place, MCCC has rebooted its athletics program. Softball, lacrosse, baseball, soccer and tennis have all returned to practice and competition.
According to Athletics Director John Simone, the sports program’s covid protection protocols are the same as those adopted by most institutions. Students wear masks and socially distance when possible. There are temperature checks and a symptom tracker specifically for the athletics department. Regular covid tests are not being administered, however.
But the most important new procedure is game cancellation. Any Mercer team, or their competitors, can cancel a game at any given point, even hours before it is supposed to be played if there is any health concern.
This happened to the softball team on Thursday, March 25 when Harford Community College canceled their game for safety concerns.
MCCC is also taking a proactive approach to athlete safety, canceling the baseball team’s practice for 10 days after a student was exposed to the coronavirus.
Athletics Director Simone says, “We didn’t have to cancel practice since the student hadn’t actually been in contact with the team at the time of contracting the virus, but we decided it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
The efforts to remain safe go beyond the new procedures set by the school and are largely placed on the students. Students say they are being proactive and careful about who they hang out with, where they go, and what they do in order to keep their team playing and safe.
Another thing some students are worrying about is losing their first year of play. Jordyn Varone says “this is my second year at Mercer, but technically I’m a freshman because, again, of covid.”
Brandon Guios, a sophomore player who’s participating in their first real season now and is captain of the lacrosse team says. “Tomorrow’s not promised to anybody, and we really want to take advantage of what we have right now, we’re grateful and blessed to be out here right now.”
LEFT: Men’s lacrosse players #44 Eric Petrula (left) and Joshua Hoitink #30 (right) during a team scrimmage in early April. CENTER: Goal keeper Sam Hensler (#33). RIGHT: Men’s lacrosse players #24 Merrik Moser (left) and Maurice Butler (right). PHOTOS | Alessandro Rivero
Another challenge MCCC athletics faces is that many of its athletes are from out of state and even out of the country.
The lacrosse team’s students have solved this issue independently, with many out-of-state students housing together in Lawrenceville, so their exposure to people is mostly with other teammates. However, the women’s soccer team has reportedly lost a few athletes who couldn’t or wouldn’t return from their countries during the pandemic.
Elyse Diamond, five year head coach for the women’s soccer team, says “It was hard on our numbers because we weren’t able to get everyone we were recruiting into the country because they closed the borders. I think a couple of people were afraid to participate in close contact sports, so we had a couple that opted out that way. But besides that, we have had our core, and right now we are good.”
This doesn’t mean no one returned from other countries, part of the “core” Coach Diamond referenced is a Brazilian player, Emanuely Dos Santos, and a Chilean player, Carolina Farias, who brought with her a friend and new team player Paula Camus also from Chile.
All three athletes agreed that they decided to come here during the pandemic because of the opportunities the country presented, both in education and work. According to them it was worth the risk, also citing that they feel safer here in the U.S than they do in their countries whereas the pandemic is concerned.
Camus says that “regardless if the U.S’s numbers are worse, I believe here I have a better access to healthcare and resources than in my country because it’s simply a more developed country. When the borders opened, I decided I’d come back and I think I was right, I haven’t been worse off. One has access to more things here than in their own country.”
Farias says coming to the US was never in question. She was born in the U.S before her family moved to Chile when she was little. It had always been her plan to come back, and covid was not going to stop her.
“Ever since I was a kid, my family had given me the idea to come back, to make my life here,” Farias says.
Dos Santos never planned to leave New Jersey after the fall semester, but she returned to Brazil for a family matter and wasn’t allowed back in the US.
Brazil, as of this semester, is suffering a complete collapse in its healthcare system and is the country hardest hit by the pandemic in South America. With the second highest death count in the world, according to statista.com and the BBC, the US quickly closed travel between the two countries.
Dos Santos wasn’t allowed to enter the U.S from Brazil and didn’t know this until she was at the airport.
“How could I not get in? I had my whole life here in the U.S, my job, rent, school payments, my world was there. Immigration told me I had to go to another country, wait 14 days, then enter the U.S. That’s money. My family told me it wasn’t safe to return, it’s not time. But if I stay, who knows when the borders will open up? I lose my whole life. I’ll lose everything. How could I not return? So I got the money, went to Mexico, quarantined for two weeks, and got back in the country.”
Women’s soccer will have its first game on April 9. They will play 9 games. One was cancelled for 4/12.. At this point lacrosse has played two games and won both with five games to go. Softball has played 9 games with a record of 5-4 with 22 games left according to Coach Zegarski.
