BY ERIN MADDEN
SPORTS EDITOR
There’s a popular saying about the month of March that goes, “In like a lion, out like a lamb,” meaning the weather is supposed to start out bad and then improve.
If you poll the students of Franciscan University, a majority of them would probably disagree with this statement, especially those who are spring sport athletes.
Just last week, when we all thought that winter had officially ended, there was yet another snowstorm. Franciscan women’s lacrosse team played Washington & Jefferson in that snowstorm. In fact, the game had to be cut 12 minutes short because of the snowfall which ended any chance for the Lady Barons to make a second-half comeback.
The next day, the Franciscan softball team played a doubleheader against Chatham with the Lady Barons winning their first game of the season less than 24 hours after the freak snowstorm. The team’s games against Penn St.-Altoona the following day had to be cancelled due to rain, even though the temperature was in the 60s.
Men’s tennis was supposed to play four matches last week. Every single match was cancelled. The ones on Friday and Saturday were cancelled at least one day in advance. As of right now, almost three weeks will pass before the Barons play their next match against the University of Pitt.-Greensburg.
All of these cancellations and postponements have caused a headache in terms of scheduling. While it is not as essential to make up non-conference games, conference games have to be rescheduled.
Rescheduling becomes an issue as the April athletics schedule is already filled with the regularly scheduled games. Now let’s try and squeeze in an extra three, four or five games before conference tournaments begin.
What about the effect that the bad weather and the cancellations have on the athletes?
Without games, they can get more practice time (if the weather allows it) but more practice can only go so far, especially at this point in the season. Each team needs to be playing games regularly in order to keep the energy and intensity up for the rest of the season.
Most of these rescheduled games will take place at the end of the season, which happens to coincide with the end of the semester. Due to the increased amount of games, the athletes will not have as much time to prepare for final exams, projects and papers.
Here’s to hoping there are no April showers. I’ve seen enough bad weather to last me for the rest of the season.