As the fall sports season begins to wind down while still navigating the coronavirus pandemic, athletes got their first glimpse of what their winter may look like.

The Colonial League announced a modified schedule for the winter sports season on Thursday.

For basketball, teams will play each member school one time for a total of 12 games.

In wrestling, each school will wrestle each other on time for a total of 11 matches.

The opportunity to compete and contest a season was all anyone could ask for.

“We’re just happy to play, if it’s nine games, 10 games, 11 games. 12 games, whatever it is,” said Northwestern girls basketball coach Chris Deutsch, who has led the team since the 2003-04 season. “Especially for the seniors, because this is it for them. This is the last opportunity they have, so you just want to make sure they get that.

“The way things are right now, to be able to get them on the court, I’m really looking forward to it. This will be an exciting season, just to see the girls be able to play.”

There will be a mandatory contest shut down period from Dec. 24 through Jan. 10.

“The league really came together and came up with some plans that were a compromise,” said Northern Lehigh Athletic Director and Colonial League President Bryan Geist. “We have schools that are currently modifying their education, you have a lot of schools that are in a hybrid model. So we looked to modify our schedules, and we took advice from our different health network partners (St. Luke’s and Lehigh Valley Health Network), and we tried to find some common ground, because there were some differences in what the medical experts were telling us.

“One of the common grounds that we had was the shutdown period. That, we felt, was important to put in there, because that was guidance that we had received and that was something that all the member schools kind of looked at (and agreed on).”

The first scheduled league basketball games are set for Dec. 11, and the first league wrestling matches will take place Dec. 12.

“Another thing that we looked at was trying to give enough spacing over the season,” said Geist. “Normally in a season, you’ll play three games a week a lot of times, and then sometimes four; if we get a lot of snow you’ll play five. So what we wanted to do was try to space games out as best as possible, and we know there’s going to be facility issues, but space games out so that if there was a team that had to shut down, we had almost 48 hours and it would only affect two teams.

“We felt that was important for wrestling, as well, that they’re not going to these big tournaments, and it gives our kids an opportunity to wrestle, and there’s enough time in between. It’s not the easiest thing in the world, but we were able to compromise, and I think it works for a lot of reasons.”

Any potential nonleague contests would be up to individual schools.

“For the most part, I want to say the majority of the league is going to stick to the schedule,” said Geist. “We don’t have the oversight to tell teams to overstep our bounds with the PIAA. So we have teams in four different counties (Lehigh, Carbon, Bucks, Northampton), and each local area makes their own decisions at that point. You look at Palisades, in Bucks County, they might not have any issues and they might have a local team that they play that it’s fine, so there’s really no oversight in that aspect. They have to make their own decision.

“But they can make decisions as well as Palmerton, which is in Carbon County, and it’s a different setup there. If Palmerton says we’re going to play Lehighton or we’re going to play Jim Thorpe, that’s a decision that Palmerton can make. It’s a little bit different here in Lehigh County and in Northampton County, so schools are going to make those local decisions.”

The league hopes to have schedules published by this weekend or early next week, with Northwestern Director of Athletics & Student Activities and league treasurer Jason Zimmerman noting Saucon Valley Athletic Director and Colonial League Vice President Bob Frey began putting them together once the concept for the modified schedules was approved.

The potential for league playoffs also still exists.

“First thing we’re going to do is get schedules, and then we’re going to work on our championship determination,” said Geist. “I think it’s fairly straightforward. It’s going to mirror, without approval at this point, it’s going to mirror the soccer championship, where you play everybody once and you have one division champion. It depends on how things change. We’re talking about three months from now that there could be some significant changes by then, and we could be having a totally different conversation, in either direction.

“But our hope is to have a league playoff. That’s always been something that we want our athletes to have something to strive for, and try to keep it as normal as possible. We’ll evaluate from there and make a decision a little bit later down the road.”

Northwestern’s football team knows all about the flexibility needed to make scheduling adjustments on the fly.

The Tigers were forced to change course due to COVID issues with Pen Argyl, resulting in a new date with Berks Catholic. Just this week, its District 11 Class 4A semifinal was canceled due to similar issues with its opponent, Wilson.

“You’re going to have to be able to make adjustments,” said Deutsch, who is also Northwestern’s Administrative Assistant to the Director of Athletics & Student Activities. “Because you could be scheduled to play somebody on one night and something might happen where you can’t play and you might have to play somebody else.

“As a coach who really relied on scouting and stuff like that, that gets thrown out the window. And that’s fine. As we saw this year in the fall, one weekend we were scheduled to play one team and then they had to back out and you have to have another team come in, and you just have to be able to roll with the punches.”

Another change could be in roster size for some teams.

“I think one of the toughest things I’m going to have this year as we’re starting to get an idea of how the season is going to go, it might be for us that I won’t be able to keep as many players on the team as we’ve done in the past,” said Deutsch. “In years past, maybe we had 20 girls on our JV and varsity team, that’s not going to happen this year. It’s going to have to be less.

“And you feel bad for kids that want to be out there and playing, but you just can’t keep everybody. That’s going to be my hardest job, just not being able to keep all the girls. We have good numbers at our school; we have a middle school program; a freshmen, JV and varsity team. We have good numbers throughout. And not to be able to keep everybody is going to be tough.”

Deutsch has had tremendous success during his tenure, owning a career record of 284-151, something he credits to the program’s depth.

“Sometimes if you make cuts, they don’t come back,” said Deutsch. “You may lose them forever. We’ve had a pretty good program, year-in, year-out, because we can rely on the next girl up. One group graduates, you have the next group coming in, ready to go because they’ve been through that.

“So that worries me a little bit, but I’m going to do the best I can do. All sports have gone through a lot. We didn’t do anything in the summer. We aren’t doing any open gyms right now, so the last time I saw our girls was the end of our last season. And next Friday will be the first time we’ll get them together since last February. So it’s been a long time.”

While the break in action and activity concerns Deutsch, he also knows some time away - or simply less time on the go - can be a good thing to help combat some of the burnout he sees in high school athletes.

“It makes you think, when we do hopefully get things back to normal, that maybe we can learn from this and cut practices shorter,” he said. “Give them more time off, and I think you can get more out of that sometimes than bringing them in every day for two hours, three hours, and you can maximize the time that you have with the kids.”

Like the fall, the winter sports season will look and feel different.

But the ability to have one - in any capacity - is what administrators in the Colonial League worked tirelessly to bring to fruition.

“I am proud to be a member of the Colonial League,” said Zimmerman. “We may not always agree, but we always manage to find a way to respect everybody’s position and do whatever we can do to provide the most opportunity for all of our student-athletes regardless of jersey color.

“I would also like to thank our Colonial League Member School principals, superintendents, and school boards for lending their support this past fall and the upcoming winter seasons when it very well may have been easier to shut us down. It took courage and a lot of trust, and we truly appreciate the opportunity for provide these young men and women a shot at competing in the sports they love.”