The WIAA Board of Control met Friday and approved a plan that allows schools to move their fall sports to the spring amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Locally, the Big Eight Conference, Badger Conference and Rock Valley Conference had already announced they would not be playing conference schedules or awarding championships this fall. The other eight Big Eight schools outside of Janesville had already postponed their fall sports and had been hoping for the spring opportunity.

Following Friday’s WIAA meeting, the School District of Janesville announced it would join the rest of the Big Eight in pushing fall sports to the proposed spring format.

“While I’m sure this will present some challenges, all of our kids will hopefully get a chance to compete this year,” Janesville Craig athletic director Ben McCormick said. “I don’t think anyone is surprised by the decision. I think we all saw this coming.

“By making this decision now, we can go ahead and begin scheduling competitions now for the spring.”

Officials in Janesville, which has given its students and their families options for the return to school this fall but currently has plans to return to in-person schooling, had previously said they hoped to fill a schedule of nonconference competitions this fall for their sports teams.

But with so many area conferences and districts announcing they would postpone to spring, McCormick said scheduling those nonconference competitions became difficult.

And although the district discussed only moving what the WIAA had deemed “high-risk” sports to the spring and leaving low-risk sports in the fall, there simply were not enough schools available in the area to fill any kind of girls golf, cross country or girls tennis nonconference schedules.

“We sent out feelers to all seven districts in the state for all of our fall sports looking for games and such and only got 20 or so replies,” McCormick said. “And that was for all sports, and none of them were really in our area, either.

“We know going forward there will be many challenges, especially when you think about officials being available, boys and girls soccer going on at the same time, and, unfortunately, not having a tournament series for those fall sports teams that will now be competing in the spring.”

Football in the spring is scheduled to begin March 8. The first games can be held the week of March 22. Each school that chooses to play football in the spring will be allowed to play a seven-game schedule but will not participate in any WIAA-sanctioned postseason tournament.

Also, by choosing to participate in the spring for all fall sports, the winter and spring seasons will also be shortened but will still allow for postseason competition.

This story will be updated over the weekend and for Monday’s edition of The Gazette.