Skidmore College athletics on pause due to COVID-19 uptick

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stan Hudy

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Skidmore College has paused its athletic programs due to an increase in positive cases of the novel coronavirus on its campus.

“Across campus we’re seeing an uptick, not just in our teams, but also in the campus population,” Skidmore athletic director Gail Cummings-Danson said Wednesday afternoon. “The decision was made last night to move from an Alert Level 2 to Alert Level 3. What that means for athletics is competition is suspended and we re-evaluate what that means for practices.”

According to Skidmore College’s COVID-19 tracker, 142 students are currently in quarantine with 20 in isolation as of the April 5 update.

Skidmore had been operating at a COVID-19 Level 2 protocol that, according to the school’s website, included weekly testing of all students on campus with limits on gatherings, off-campus visitors and number of students allowed in the library.

At Level 3, testing can potentially increase to twice weekly for students, faculty and staff; informal gatherings are suspended; the library is closed; and, athletic competitions are suspended.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we just decided to suspend our practices for the remainder of this week, give us a chance to evaluate and see whether there is anything we need to be paying closer attention to within our teams,” Cummings-Danson said.

Cummings-Danson said that the increase in positive cases was not due to any one event.

“It wasn’t because of a party or a gathering that took place in any particular way that is causing alarm, but it is something we want to make sure we’re paying attention to and seeing whether or not we can mitigate this before it goes bigger than it needs to go.”

The Skidmore Athletics website listed two postponements on Tuesday, including Wednesday’s scheduled men’s lacrosse contest against Union College. Wednesday morning, the postponements included all scheduled contests through April 17.

“Students will be continued to be tested this week and hopefully we’ll resume practice next week,” Cummings-Danson said. “We’ll wait and see when the campus moves back to Alert Level 2, which will allow us to begin again to compete.”