{"id":2661,"date":"2021-03-19T16:37:09","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T21:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/?p=2661"},"modified":"2021-03-19T16:37:09","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T21:37:09","slug":"a-senior-season-cut-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/2021\/03\/19\/a-senior-season-cut-short\/","title":{"rendered":"A Senior Season Cut Short"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Ty Egan, pictured left. Nathan Perry, pictured right.<\/p><\/div>\n

Our new normal looks a lot different in today\u2019s world, and the same could be said in high school sports. As for student athletes in Illinois, they had to make a lot of sacrifices when it came to playing basketball again. <\/p>\n

Ty Egan and Nathan Perry–seniors from LeRoy High School–are just two examples of students who had to adjust to COVID-19 basketball. For much of the year, they did not expect a season to take place. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was very shocked when I found out that we would have a basketball season because of how late in the season we already were,\u201d said Egan. <\/p>\n

Preparation in high school basketball is one of the keys to winning games, but that was difficult this year. <\/p>\n

\u201cHaving three games a week this year definitely made preparation a lot harder,\u201d said Egan. \u201cOur job as players was pretty easy if we just remembered what the coaches told us to do prior to the games.\u201d <\/p>\n

All high school basketball players in Illinois had to wear masks during their games, and Egan and Perry were only permitted to have two spectators each at their home games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a weird transition,\u201d said Perry. \u201cThe fan situation took time to get used to because it was weird playing in some high tempo games without the noise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Egan and Perry started every game for the Panthers this season. Their senior leadership paid dividends, but at times the motivation was not always there. The Illinois High School Association made the decision to not hold a postseason for basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I found out there was no postseason, I was very upset,\u201d said Egan. \u201cI know that this team could have made a very good run in the postseason.\u201d His teammate Perry had similar thoughts saying, \u201cIn the beginning, I did feel very unmotivated.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the season progressed, the thought of a conference title ultimately kept this team playing like everything was on the line. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I found out we could win a conference championship, my attitude changed,\u201d said Perry. <\/p>\n

That conference title the team saw they had a shot at finally came, and the shortened season became a huge success.<\/p>\n

The LeRoy boys\u2019 basketball team finished the season 12-1, winning a share of the HOIC regular-season title.
\n\u201cNobody in the conference thought that we would end up at the top at the end of the year,\u201d said Egan. \u201cI think this title shocked a lot of people around our community because of how difficult this conference is to play in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was such a good feeling because there are a lot of things being taken away from the seniors. It was nice to have one good thing happen,\u201d said Perry. <\/p>\n

This season was unique, but seniors across the state were grateful to step on the court for one last season. <\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to have one last ride with these guys was amazing. We\u2019ve all grown up playing basketball together for over 10 years,\u201d said Egan. \u201cWe\u2019ve been talking about how good our group could be since middle school.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to play with my boys one last time was a blessing,\u201d said Perry. \u201cIt really meant a lot to get one last dance with them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our new normal looks a lot different in today\u2019s world, and the same could be said in high school sports. As for student athletes in Illinois, they had to make a lot of sacrifices when it came to playing basketball again. Ty Egan and Nathan Perry–seniors from LeRoy High School–are just two examples of students who had to adjust to COVID-19 basketball. For much of the year, they did not expect a season to take place. \u201cI was very shocked when I found out that we would have a basketball season because of how late in the season we already were,\u201d said Egan. Preparation in high school basketball is one of the keys to winning games, but that was difficult this year. \u201cHaving three games a week this year definitely made preparation a lot harder,\u201d said Egan. \u201cOur job as players was pretty easy if we just remembered what the coaches told us to do prior to the games.\u201d All high school basketball players in Illinois had to wear masks during their games, and Egan and Perry were only permitted to have two spectators each at their home games. \u201cIt was a weird transition,\u201d said Perry. \u201cThe fan situation took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":327,"featured_media":2662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-2661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-bucom360"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/327"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2663,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2661\/revisions\/2663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}