The extreme weather affecting the state of Texas is causing constant changes among sports schedules.
On Tuesday, the University Interscholastic League announced the postponement of the girls swimming & diving state championships and the extension of the boys basketball district certification deadline and girls basketball area round deadlines.
The swimming & diving state meet, previously scheduled for Friday and Saturday at the Bill Walker Pool & Josh Davis Natatorium, now has the Class 6A girls competing Monday and the Class 5A girls Tuesday at the same location.
In boys basketball, the district certification deadline was originally Tuesday, and the bi-district round of the playoffs was set to begin today. But with severe winter weather still on the horizon, power and water issues across the state and many school districts remaining closed, the playoffs will have to wait.
The district certification deadline has been extended to Saturday for the boys. Playoff dates and revised certification deadlines will be announced at a later time because of the continuously evolving situation. The UIL is asking district executive committee chairs “to certify district standings and playoff representatives as soon as possible,” and if that has been done, teams are being asked to play their bi-district games.
Girls area round dates, times and locations continue to shift as the UIL also pushed back the playoff certification dates. Area contests were supposed to be played Monday and Tuesday, with the third round tipping off today. The playoff schedule now will be delayed at least a few days.
Falfurrias ISD, which has two popular neutral-site gyms, is offering those gyms as shelters to the community, making them unavailable to squads that were planning on playing there. That caused Brownsville IDEA Frontier to make new plans late Tuesday. The Lady Chargers were scheduled to play Aransas Pass at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday in Bishop, but just before 1 p.m. the game was postponed because the gym had no power.
IDEA Frontier is now scheduled to play at noon today at Bishop. The Lyford Lady Bulldogs are set to play against Bishop at 3 p.m. today at Kingsville King.
The Rio Hondo Lady Bobcats and Brownsville Veterans Memorial Lady Chargers are both scheduled to play their respective area round games Friday. Brownsville Veterans is expected to play Victoria East at 2 p.m. at Corpus Christi King. Rio Hondo’s latest update has the Lady Bobcats facing Somerset at 7 p.m. at Corpus Christi Calallen. As displayed during the past few days, all game details are subject to change.
Harlingen High’s contest against San Antonio Harlan and Santa Rosa’s match with Skidmore-Tynan have been postponed with details still pending.
TAPPS also updated the schedules for soccer and basketball playoffs due to the weather situation. The Brownsville St. Joseph Bloodhounds boys soccer team advanced to Round 2 after defeating Woodlands Christian 2-1 on Saturday. The area certification deadline has been pushed to Feb. 24, and regional round games must be played by Feb. 27.
St. Joseph’s boys and girls basketball teams will be competing in the postseason but don’t know their first-round opponents yet. TAPPS executive director Bryan Bunselmeyer announced last week that the basketball district certification deadline had been pushed to Saturday, but the date has now been moved to Tuesday. The bi-district deadline follows closely Feb. 25, and area round games must be played by March 2.
