Senior athletes are glad to have winter sports back despite having a limited season and coronavirus restrictions.

After being canceled, winter sports were allowed to continue with a shortened season March 1-17. According to Athletics Director David Ribbens, this was because of the significant decrease in positivity rate and a significant rise in vaccinations resulting in approval by the University of Chicago for a shorter season.

Because of the return, senior athletes have been given a chance to have their last season as high school athletes.

“It’s a passing of the torch. We have a lot of younger guys on the team and having this year lets us form bigger bonds to continue that passing of torch that was passed to us from players three or four years ago,” Tolu Johnson, senior basketball player, said.

Tolu said that after the first cancellation, many of the basketball players gave up training but were still enthusiastic upon return once they returned.

“I think I would have been more disappointed if we had not had a season at all,” Tolu said. “I think for a senior the biggest thing is finishing out with that fourth year of your sport, having senior night and just having that. It would have been really tough to not have that. Although it’s only three weeks, we’re giving it our all because we’re all going off to different colleges. We want to leave our legacy and leave our mark.”

Senior swimmer Graham Waterstraat said he was less bothered by the scheduling changes.

“Because of club swimming, I’ve gotten used to not exactly having a set schedule that I can rely on so I was not super-adversely affected by cancellations,” Graham said.

Sana Shahul, co-captain of the girls basketball team, said that she and her teammates were able to find their rhythm quickly despite the short season. 

“It feels like ever since COVID happened a year ago today, the world has changed,” Sana said “I think for the first time it felt quite normal even though we were wearing masks.”