By By Adam Robinson
Sports Editor
Softball tournaments and the state meet for track will have to wait until this week to be played after they were postponed last week.
Steve Savarese, executive director of the Alabama High School Athletic Association, said Wednesday night that all AHSAA athletic events would be shut down immediately due to probable cases of swine flu that have shut down three school systems in the Huntsville area.
The track meet was set to be ran in Gulf Shores and Troy on Friday and Saturday will now be just ran in Gulf Shores.
Saverese said this is not something officials want to do, but as of right now, they want to be cautious.
In the Brewton area, both W.S. Neal and T.R. Miller was set to be in the softball and track playoffs.
The AHSAA said teams could practice but it would be up to individual schools and Haney practiced his team Thursday but took Friday off.
Although Haney is the softball coach, he had concern about the track meet finals.
Haney said the tournament ruling of if they got rained out those two days at the area tournament, drawing names from a hat would possibly come into effect.
Haney said he was not sure what to believe Thursday morning.
W.S. Neal head track coach Chris Davis thought it was a joke also Thursday morning.
Davis said his team has Jeremy Nicholson returning as a state champion in the hurdles and he is battling a hamstring problem right now, but as of yesterday he looked really, really good.
T.R. Miller softball coach Greg White said it’s unfortunate, but understands why they are doing it.
T.R. Miller Tiger head football coach and athletic director Jamie Riggs said the only thing that he knew is that the track meet is postponed until next week, but they can’t run in Troy.
As for softball?
One other thing going on is spring training football. While T.R. Miller and W.S. Neal have already completed theirs this season, others have theirs now.
Little League teams and Jefferson Davis sports, as of Thursday, were still set to be played as scheduled.
W.S. Neal’s athletic director and head football coach Blaine Hathcock was not in town Thursday.
As of Friday, T.R. Miller officials said their softball tournament would now be a single elimination format instead of the double elimination.