Options for the winter sports season timeline, at least in the Colonial League, are beginning to take shape.

Kyle Porembo, Palmerton Area School District athletic director, said Wednesday night the league had two main options, start contests on time (Dec. 11) with a competition shutdown Dec. 24-Jan. 10, or start winter sports in mid-to-late January.

“The league is expected to vote Nov. 12 on the option to start on time with the competition shutdown over the holidays, pending feedback from each member school’s administration,” Porembo said.

Starting on time, he added, does provide the best opportunity for the league to get in its winter seasons within PIAA deadlines. As of Wednesday, the PIAA had not altered its start dates of Nov. 20 for practice and Dec. 11 for games.

“As we looked to the fall, when the football league schedule was eventually cut down to six games, and we said what was the benefit of waiting to start, we realized we really didn’t get much out of waiting,” Porembo said.

Palmerton’s winter sports programs include boys and girls basketball, wrestling and cheerleading, all of which are considered high risk/contact sports.

Under the option to start on time with the holiday competition break, each school in the league would play each other one time in basketball, resulting in 13 games, and one time in wrestling, resulting in 11 matches.

“That option would eliminate basketball and wrestling tournaments for this year,” Porembo said.

Dr. Jodi Frankelli, Palmerton superintendent, said the district would be taking some questions back to the league meetings and she would also be having conversations with other superintendents, particularly on how things would be handled in counties with a “substantial” COVID-19 transmission level based on state metrics.

“I’m concerned that we’re moving now to all inside, high-contact sports and most of our league games will be against schools from Lehigh or Northampton counties, which have substantial or close to substantial community transmission levels for COVID-19,” Board President Kathy Fallow said.

The two local health networks, Lehigh Valley and St. Luke’s, split on their recommendation of whether to start on time and take the 18-day holiday break, or wait until mid-to-late January, according to Porembo.

At the high school level, Palmerton has 67 students signed up for winter sports, although that number should be down to around 50 participants following cuts. It also has 36 students signed up for winter sports at the junior high school level.

Like it did in the fall, the Colonial League is working on a universal game day action plan that would serve as a baseline guide for each school.

“It really worked well in the fall because no matter the school you were visiting, you kind of knew what to expect,” Porembo said. “It’s still really early in the process for winter.”

There will be some changes from the norm.

In wrestling, for example, Palmerton plans to use two mats for home matches. While one mat is being used, the other will be sanitized, and matches will alternate between the two.

As for spectators, Porembo said that decision is yet to come.

“We’re not there yet, we’ll take a deeper dive into that,” he said. “I’m not sure making that decision a month and a half out from the first game is the right thing to do.”

During fall sports, Palmerton got in 130 varsity and junior varsity events, with only one girls soccer game canceled due to a COVID-19 issue with the opposing school.

“I think the fall season has gone really well,” Porembo said. “It’s a huge credit to our athletes, coaches, parents, trainers and everyone else involved. We have become really efficient with the screening process. We’ve done 16,283 screens to date for fall sports and only one positive test, which was not contracted through sports.”