After a year’s hiatus, the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference’s winter sports championships are under way.

And conference officially couldn’t be more excited.

Despite COVID-19 and its multitude of variants still rearing their ugly heads around the Ohio Valley and nation, the student-athletes of the OVAC are competing on the same schedule and closing in on crowning their first head-to-head champions for the sports of wrestling, swimming, bowling, cheering and basketball for the first time since 2020.

As the 68th annual OVAC Ron Mauck Wrestling Tournament got under way on Thursday, it begins a six-week stretch of conference championships.

Obviously, as we’ve all come to realize, things can happen and change quickly in the midst of a pandemic, especially when COVID-19 numbers continue to climb at an incredible rate, but getting to the starting line was big for the OVAC.

“We’ve been holding our breath a lot and living week-to-week like everyone else,” OVAC Executive Director Dirk DeCoy said. “We’re a lot smarter now than we were (dealing with these issues), but it’s still nerve-wracking. We just continue to hope that things remain as calm as possible COVID wise for the next six weeks.”

Indeed.

The nerves settled down — for the sport of wrestling — somewhat on Thursday when more than 400 wrestlers began their quest to win the coveted OVAC championship. Though the event is close to wrapping up, it endured a few hiccups before the first pin was ever recorded.

Because of more than 70 scratches, on Thursday, many of the brackets had undergo a significant revision, which caused opening ceremonies to be delayed for a few minutes.

A few minutes was worth it when you consider it had been 714 days since the wrestlers last paraded into WesBanco Arena.

“We’re just excited for the kids to have the opportunity,” OVAC Wrestling Commissioner and tournament director Dr. Dan Doyle said. “We knew there would be issues, and I hope and prayed we were able to keep them as minimal as possible. The key was keeping an open mind.”

Doyle and his stable of meet workers and volunteers have to just get through Saturday and then the sport can shift its focus to the Bill Hinegardner Dual Meet Championships, which will be held early next month at Brooke and John Marshall.

Bill Brubaker — the director and for whom the OVAC Swimming Championship is named — felt the nerves calm down Saturday morning when upwards of 400 swimmers arrived at Brooke High School.

“I am really looking forward to getting back to an in-person OVAC Swimming Championship,” Brubaker, who is the head coach at Linsly, said. “It will be a really good meet with the best swimmers from the conference in both Ohio and West Virginia able to compete head-to-head.”

Don’t think that Brubaker was able to take a vacation or relax when the championship meet was canceled last year. It actually created probably even more work because the conference crowned individual and team champions.

Brubaker compiled marks from throughout the season, on both sides of the river, and the top times were listed as OVAC champions. Once all of the times were entered, the meet was scored and the highest-scoring teams received their hardware.

“We almost had a championship last year, but when West Virginia delayed (the season) for the second time, the paper meet was our only option,” Brubaker said.

Obviously, considering everything that occurred last winter and the number of hoops the OVAC, schools, coaches and athletes had to jump through, the fact that any champions were crowned is a credit to everyone involved.

It would have been easy for the OVAC to throw up its hands and say, ‘sorry! We give up!.”

That’s simply not been the way this valley, conference or its schools have operated.

“Any chance we can get to have the kids get out and compete is a good day,” DeCoy said. “The conference is all about setting the stage for kids to compete at the highest level within the OVAC.”

Having said that, it’s a safe bet that all of the above parties — athletes included — are excited to have head-to-head competition back.

Let’s be honest! Deciding a swimming champion based on times rather than head-to-head competition or a bowling champion based on what a player and team rolled on his or its own lanes simply isn’t the same.

Team champions in wrestling and basketball were crowned via the old-school standings format, creating a paper champion.

“It’s all in how you look at things,” DeCoy said. “We tried, as a conference, to give our schools and athletes a chance to score, earn personal bests in their pool or alley and compete at as high of a level as possible. We didn’t invent anything, but we tried to be as creative as possible to crown champions.”

Despite multiple attempts and revised plans, wrestling was unable to crown individual champions for the first time in 67 years because the states of Ohio and West Virginia operated on difference calendars.

Ohio put its head down and pushed forward throughout the entire school year, whereas West Virginia delayed its winter sports season and finished basically in the spring and had two seasons worth of sports going on concurrently.

The Buckeye State schools were basically beginning their postseason in wrestling when West Virginia was just cranking things up

“Similar to the OVAC All-Star Football Game (in 2020), I would have never thought our wrestling tournament would have been canceled for any reason,” DeCoy said. “But, obviously, we had to play the cards we’re dealt. And we tried our best to give our schools a chance to succeed, as best as possible, in the COVID environment.”

Unfortunately, the COVID environment isn’t going away anytime soon, but let’s hope it’s at least calming down.

While Brubaker’s nerves can relax and he can enjoy the remainder of the swimming season, Doyle has a few more weeks to navigate before he can fully calm the nerves.

For DeCoy, however, the road to a lengthy exhale still has several more stops, starting with this weekend when bowling unfolds at St. Clair Lanes in St. Clairsville and Pike Street Lanes in Parkersburg.

“After each event there will be a big sigh of relief that we were able to pull it off for the student-athletes,” DeCoy said.

And the student-athlete, experiences and memories are what it’s all about!

MLK CLASSIC AT LINSLY

The inaugural MLK Classic at The Linsly School will be held Monday, showcasing two boys and a girls basketball game, starting at 1:30 p.m.

The event was the brainchild of Cadets boys basketball coach Dave Wojcik, who indicated he hopes to make the event an annual.

Linsly and Morgantown will have both their boys and girls teams on hand for the event, while the Wheeling Park and Brooke boys will round out the field.

The schedule for the day is as follows:

1:30 p.m. — Wheeling Park vs. Brooke (boys)

3:30 p.m. — Morgantown vs. Linsly (girls)

5:30 p.m. — Morgantown vs. Linsly (boys)

SETH’S SCOOPS

WHEELING CENTRAL senior basketball player Ryan Reasbeck was listed among the Southeast nominees for the annual McDonald’s All-American Basketball Team.

WHEELING PARK grad Abby Turner was named Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Week in women’s swimming after she claimed first place in the 50-yard freestyle in 24.11. She also swam a leg on the 200-freestyle relay team in 1:40.46. She was third in the 100 free in 53.34 in a triangular.

EAST LIVERPOOL joins Bellaire as schools in the market for a new football coach. Josh Ludwig stepped down from the position last week after eight seasons.

RIVER grad Lauren Flannery is enjoying a solid junior season at Lake Erie College. She’s currently averaging 9.9 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game. She’s also shooting 92.6% from the foul line.

 FORMER WHEELING Park all-state basketball player Keondre King is enjoying a fine season for WVU Tech.The 6-4 junior guard is averaging 5.1 points, five rebounds and three assists per game. Tech is 15-2 and riding a 12-game winning streak.

Staskey can be reached via email at sstaskey@timesleaderonline.com or at twitter.com/TLSportsSeth