Tuesday, January 11th marked a unfortunate situation for the Northwood soccer program. That day began with breakfast and a routine all-school COVID test, but by dinnertime, ten soccer players were positive, effectively putting the U17 and U19 soccer teams on pause. A half dozen students were positive on the first day. A week later, twenty-two soccer players had tested positive.
In response, coaches canceled all trainings for a week while the student-athletes recovered in 5-day quarantines. Northwood’s health center worked tirelessly to insure each infected player who couldn’t go home had a safe space to quarantine whether that be on the on campus infirmary or in hotels located close by.
Thankfully, this outbreak didn’t force a pause of other athletic programs, which is remarkable considering almost 60% of the soccer program became infected in the first weeks of the new year. That’s not to say other parts of the school haven’t seen positive cases. In fact, approximately one-third of students and employees have tested positive since Christmas Eve.
The soccer team has recovered, after a long week of quarantining, things have returned to close to normal. The U19 team even won a tournament in Burlington VT the week after most of the team was released from isolation.
