Members of Free State boys basketball team quarantining after positive COVID-19 case

photo by: Contributed photo

The Free State boys basketball team huddles while some players are not wearing masks during a game Saturday, Dec. 5, 2020, in Liberty, Mo. Five coaches and 20 players are quarantining after a player tested positive for COVID-19. (Photo courtesy of Mac Moore of the Courier Tribune)

Members of Free State High School’s boys basketball team are quarantining after a player tested positive for COVID-19 just days after the team opened its 2020-21 season.

Julie Boyle, spokeswoman for the Lawrence school district, said the high school was informed Monday that one of the team’s players tested positive for the virus, and Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health asked five coaches and 20 students to quarantine until Dec. 15.

The confirmed case comes a few days after the team began its season with back-to-back games over the weekend, with a game in Lawrence on Friday and a game in Liberty, Mo., on Saturday.

“Through contact tracing in collaboration with Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, it was determined that the coaches and players on the boys’ (junior varsity) and Varsity Basketball teams were at risk of exposure due to close contact during games on Friday and a shootaround and games on Saturday,” Boyle said in an email.

While the school district’s COVID-19 protocols called for basketball teams to wear masks during games in Lawrence, players did not wear masks during games in Liberty.

Local health officials recently advised the school district during a school board meeting that basketball can be played amid the pandemic when certain public health measures are followed, such as requiring athletes to wear masks during games.

According to an email obtained by the Journal-World from Jeff Dickson, Lawrence High’s girls basketball coach, the school district does not require basketball players to wear masks when playing at a school that does not have a mask mandate in place. While Dickson noted in the email he would like players to wear masks, he said it was up to parents to decide whether their children would wear masks when they played in Manhattan last week.

On Tuesday afternoon, Boyle confirmed that was the case. She said the district’s practice is to have its teams follow the public health guidelines of the county they are playing in.

“The district continues to discuss and explore ways to mitigate risk for our student-athletes,” she said.


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