Gary Clark

Principal

Curt Jones

Activities Director

Tonya Vetter

Administrative Assistant

A Tradition of Academic Excellence West Fargo High School

801 - 9th Street East

West Fargo, ND 58078

(701) 356-2050 Fax: (701) 356-2060

April 12, 2013

TO: Sherm Sylling, Executive Director of the NDHSAA

FR: Curt Jones, Activities Director, West Fargo High School

RE: Extending State Tournament Dates

Mr. Sherm Sylling,

Sherm, on behalf of the member schools and athletes of North Dakota, would the NDHSAA Board of Directors consider moving the spring state tournaments one (or two) weeks later than what has been posted for this spring season due to the very poor spring weather? To date, we have not been able to compete in an outdoor event and most schools/teams have not been able to practice outdoors as of this Friday, April 12, 2013.

West Fargo High School along with many other schools on both the east and western halves of the state have or will have cancelled most or all of next week’s events. With respect to the sports of soccer, baseball and softball, we may not be able to host any of those events until either shortly before May 1st or or shortly after that date. If this were the case, and it may be optimistic to think so, our outdoor season would be cut short by a minimum of four weeks.

In preparation for our region tournaments, we may most likely be unable to “safely” schedule sufficient numbers of events/competitions that would safely place our athletes in “harms-way” of athletic injuries due to too many events in a short period of time. Again, if our athletic fields are not ready, then add another week of waiting and subtract another week of “safe play” for our student-athletes.

Realistically, if the weather improves, we may only have two weeks of competition on our existing game fields prior to our region/state qualifying tournaments. With nine teams in our baseball/softball regions, we would need to have our teams play four and a half games per week pending any weather related postponements.

Thanks for your consideration.

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North Central Association