Play on, Hanover Area.

After hearing impassioned statements from more than a dozen student-athletes and their parents during Monday’s special meeting, the Hanover Area School Board reversed its stance on resuming athletic and extracurricular activities.

The school board voted, 5-1, in favor of resuming activities.

“We are willing to do whatever is asked of us and whatever it takes to have some type of season,” Cael Davis, a senior on the boys soccer team, told the board. “Coaches will have other senior classes, but we will only have one senior year.”

With the exception of MMI Prep, which canceled most sports but allowed cross country and golf, Hanover Area had been the lone member of the WVC to shut down fall athletics because of coronavirus concerns.

The shutdown vote, a 5-3 decision, was made Thursday, but met with negative feedback that triggered a re-vote.

Voting yes on Monday were board members Stacy Bleich, Frank Ciavarella, Paul Holmgren, John Mahle and Richard Stevens. Bleich flipped her vote from Thursday.

Joyce Potsko was the lone no vote Monday, as Vic Kopko, Michael Mazur and Matthew Redick, all of whom voted no on Thursday, did not attend the re-vote meeting.

“The reason I’m voting yes,” Ciavarella explained, “is because the PIAA is allowing it, the Wyoming Valley Conference is allowing it, we are allowing students to go to college courses and Vo-Tech. So my vote is yes. Go Hawks!”

A recurring claim among the student-athletes who spoke before the board was that sports can be played safely amid the pandemic. The board meeting was broadcast virtually on Zoom, a teleconference application.

“I’ve played an East Coast golf tournament schedule all summer with 150 to 200 players,” said junior Kyleen McCance, one of the top golfers in District 2. “With the COVID rules in place, it remained a success.”

Riley Corbett, a junior field hockey player, said that she practiced throughout the summer and went to a tournament where social distancing was observed, masks were worn and equipment was not shared.

Despite 25 teams and their families attending the event, Corbett said it was a safe success, much like the environment she said coach Jocelyn Holodick-Reed will provide for the Hawkeyes.

“As a junior hoping to continue my athletic career in college, junior season could be a very important year in the recruiting process,” Corbett said. “If this year is taken away from my fellow athletes and me, we will … be behind other athletes trying to be recruited and could lose interest from coaches and opportunities to play in college.”

Madi Osburn, a senior on the girls soccer team, also addressed the board.

“Achieving high grades is at the top of my goals for this school year,” Osburn said. “However, finishing my final soccer season falls not too far behind. I began playing soccer at 5 years old. Since then, I have never missed a single season.”

The PIAA allowed for mandatory practices to begin in all fall sports Aug. 24. The WVC regular season is already underway for golf and girls tennis teams. Cross country, field hockey, football, girls volleyball, soccer and water polo contests may begin Sept. 11.

“We knew that it was a possibility,” Fred Barletta, president of the WVC athletic directors, said when asked how Monday’s vote will affect the league schedule. “We’re going to have to take a look at it and see what we can come up with. We don’t have a definitive plan yet, but we’re going to work on it. … We’re going to talk to the schools involved and obviously we’re going to have to deal with it; no different than what we’ve done in the last four weeks here. Every time they throw a change out, we somehow adapt to it.”

The Hawkeyes’ football team is the one that could be most harshly affected by the school’s late start. Football teams require a five-day heat acclimation period followed by two weeks of practice. A first-week bye is likely, as there’s not enough time for Hanover Area to fill those requirements by Sept. 11.

Mike Namey, the WVC football league secretary and assignor, said Hanover Area’s opt-out and subsequent opt-in do have a “profound effect” on the league schedule. However, it’s just the nature of things this season.

“We told all the schools that were involved that this is an ever-changing league,” Namey said. “Until every school board had reported in, nothing was for certain.”

On another note, Hanover Area possibly acted in violation of a transparency law known as the Sunshine Act.

Although Monday’s meeting received considerable media coverage in the days leading up to it, the Sunshine Act stipulates that news articles do not take the place of the required legal notice advertising.

The announcement appeared in the Times Leader, but it appeared in article-form. Solicitor Jack Dean said he did not know if that was a paid advertisement.

Dean added that he believes Hanover Area was in compliance with the Sunshine Act, but if it were challenged and proven to be incorrect, Hanover Area would make sure it’s up to code in the future.