If you’re a Warner High School athlete, wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is a team effort.
When Warner High School senior, Summer Scepaniak sees a classmate without their mask on, she’s quick to react.
“I just tell them, like, “hey guys, make sure you keep your mask on.” Or, if it’s below their nose or around their chin, I say, “hey pull your mask back up. We don’t want to get shut down.” I just give them a little reminder. I don’t wanna be rude about it, but it’s also a big deal. Honestly, it can cause a lot of damage that you wouldn’t really expect, and it happens a lot quicker than you think,’” Scepaniak says.
The defensive specialist speaks from experience.
“So, during regions, we were supposed to play the winner of the Waverly South Shore game, however, Waverly found out the first round of regions, that they were not able to play because one of the girls tested positive for COVID. And their season ended. It really showed me that all it took was one case and in a couple hours, everything ended,” Scepaniak says.
Going into the season, mask wearing wasn’t something these athletes did much of. It was a school board’s decision mandating that all students wear masks upon entering the school building and head coach Kari Jung reinforced the practice.
“If we do everything we can, and we get shut down, then we have nothing to feel bad about. But if we’re not doing everything we can to try and stay in school, and in sports, don’t feel bad if you lose your season,” Jung says.
From talking with the athletes, they took Coach Jung’s message to heart. And it didn’t take long before mask wearing became their idea according to senior Holli Jark.
“After seeing what happened to some other teams when they had to quarantine for two weeks just because of one case, one person tested positive. It showed me that I’m not above COVID,” Jark says.
Like most of her teammates, Holli has played volleyball since elementary school and she’s passionate about it.
“I love the environment that sports’ bring with my team. And especially because this is my last year competing with my teammates, I don’t want to have any of that cut short for me, if at all possible so I will be wearing my mask whenever I go out just to be extra safe,” Jark says.
With a strong chance the Warner Monarchs would qualify for the State B Volleyball Tournament, finishing the season was the incentive for mask wearing explains right side hitter, Peyton Fisher.
“If I don’t wear my mask, I’m exposing myself to potentially getting COVID, and then that puts my team at risk. And then if I put my team at risk, then there’s a possibility we aren’t going to be able to go to the state tournament, and that’s the end goal. That’s what we wanted to do this year, go to the state tournament and stay healthy,” Fisher says.
Along with wearing masks in school, on the sidelines, and out in the community, the athletes also practiced other CDC recommended measures, says Holli Jark.
“My family, we didn’t all get together for Thanksgiving like we normally would,” Jark says.
Their efforts paid off. The team stayed healthy. Of 15 girls, only one tested positive for COVID-19 and because of mask wearing, no one had to quarantine and none of the other team members developed symptoms.
The team not only made it to State B Volleyball, they placed second, shares Peyton Fisher.
“We finally met our goal. This season was a really challenging just because of all of the unknowns. You didn’t know if you’d be in school the next day. You didn’t know if you were going to get that call from the Health Department saying, “you’ve been exposed, you have to quarantine yourself.” You never knew. So our theme this year was, make it count. And so, every time we stepped onto that court, we didn’t know if it was gonna be our last time playing together for two weeks, we never knew. So, I think that motivated us to play hard,’” Fisher says.
Now that the 2020 Volleyball season is wrapped up, Peyton, Holli and Summer are out on the court again. This time they are playing basketball and the athletes’ say they remain diligent about mask wearing.