The start of the fall sports season is on hold for one school in the Wyoming Valley Conference after Hanover Area announced Sunday that practices will be temporarily suspended.

Today was scheduled to be the first date high school athletic teams could begin holding mandatory practices in preparation for the 2020 fall sports season.

Instead, Hanover Area will wait until its school board meets this week to determine if the school will participate in a fall sports season. The date of the board meeting has not been announced, but is expected to be sometime Monday.

“We are suspending fall sports until the board decides this week,” Hanover Area athletic director Mike McCree said.

The decision covers all athletic teams at Hanover Area and there will be no practices, voluntary or mandatory, until the school boards makes the ultimate call whether to move forward or not.

On Friday, the PIAA Board of Directors voted 25-5 to begin the fall sports season, but it will be based on each individual school district and its administrators to to make the decision. At its most recent meeting, the Wyoming Valley Conference athletic directors met via ZOOM and voted 13-1 to approve an eight-game football schedule. The first football game can be played on Sept. 11.

Earlier this month, Gov. Tom Wolf was asked a question about fall sports and he said he made a recommendation that youth sports should not be played until at least Jan. 1. Because it was a recommendation and not a mandate, the PIAA pushed back the start of the fall season to have an opportunity to speak with Wolf’s administration about possibly relaxing the restrictions and clarifying his recommendation.

With the governor’s office standing firm with the recommendation, the PIAA at its Friday meeting decided to go forward with the decision resting with the school boards and superintendents.

On Aug. 10 the school district suspended voluntary workouts for student-athletes after it was learned an individual within the athletic department had tested positive for COVID-19.