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COVID-19 has hit Beulah athletics hard since the start of summer workouts. The football team had to miss most of the summer after a couple of outbreaks and the first three weeks of the season because of the virus.

On Monday, both basketball teams shut down because of the number of players that are in quarantine.

“We’ve just been having bad luck with it,” Beulah girls basketball coach Sabrina Milligan said. “We had just gotten started. I think it’s eventually going to hit every school. It’s just out of your control no matter what precautions you take.”

The Beulah girls team played its first game of the season on Friday, defeating Beauregard, but since then a player tested positive for the virus and the rest of the team was sent home to quarantine, including Milligan.

On the boys’ side, they also played the first game of the season, a loss to Beauregard. They were able to play Smiths Station on Monday with a small number of players. Since Friday, boys’ head coach Mike Powers has lost five players off his 12-man roster due to quarantine.

As more students were sent home to quarantine, Powers had to call off the remaining games before Thanksgiving break.

“I just can’t play with five guys,” Powers said. “It’s one of those things. I told my kids each day we can get in the gym just consider it a gift because you don’t know if it’s your last day. They were a little upset that we weren’t able to play, but they also understand the environment that we’re in.”

Both Bobcat teams are on hiatus for two weeks as they wait to make sure they can play together as a team, but missing 14 days is a lot of time off when the season has already started.

“When you sit down for those 14 days, you have to get into a rhythm,” Milligan said. “You have to get into practice to get your athletes into some type of shape. This could actually end some team’s seasons if it hits your team at some point in the year.”

This isn’t the first time that Powers has had to adjust the season, as he was an assistant coach for football.

“You got to see how we had to adjust on the fly,” Powers said. “Sometimes you have a gameplan and the next thing you know everything could change. You just learn how to be flexible. When a part of the puzzle is out, what can I fit in there next?”

While a coach hopes they never have to shut a team down, the fact that Beulah has to shut down at the start of the season will help out in the long run, just in case it has to shut down again in the future.

“If it had to happen, it was probably the best time to happen,” Powers said. “We already had that week off for Thanksgiving, so you’re really only losing a week. We got a couple of games in, so we have some film to watch. You can make the best out of it.”