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Parks board discusses COVID impact

(1/6) The Taneytown Parks & Recreation Advisory Board reviewed the past year’s efforts with regards to local and regional sports event during the pandemic and discussed plans for the coming season.

John Franks, president of Francis Scott Key (FSK) Jr Eagles Football, told the board that COVID-19 had effectively "shut our season down (as of) June or July last year. "Because of the current situation we haven’t really done much. We’ve had no season."

However, he stated, "Now that we’re into the new year, we are looking into fundraising and things of that nature to try to help with alleviating the amount of money that we lost trying to start-up last season."

Additionally, Franks said, registration for the coming season will take place, stating, "April 1 is when we open our registration. Hopefully the current coronavirus situation did not impact our registrations very badly, so we would anticipate probably in the neighborhood of about 90 registrations."

Regarding baseball, Richard Krebs, president of Taneytown Lions Baseball, told the board, "We had a couple of COVID scares where one of the parents showed up after testing positive … (but they) never really got within six-feet of anybody, so we shut-down … (and) made sure everything was clear." He said the teams went back to playing three or four days later, "and that happened twice (someone present with COVID), but that there was no contact exposure resulting from the incidents."

Additionally, he noted, the league is currently working on a merger "between our league and the West Carroll Baseball League … which will potentially bring two more eight-year teams and possibly four more T-ball teams, so that’s going to bump our numbers up drastically." Krebs also added that, "New to this year, we’re going to play baseball in Adams County, at all age-levels except for T-ball, which will remain in-house in Taneytown and Union Bridge."

Rebecca Bachtel, president and coach of West Carroll Field Hockey, told the board, "West Carroll Field Hockey was able to have a season this fall. We had lower numbers. We had to modify some things (such as combining some teams to achieve the team numbers necessary) and the girls were still very competitive, so it was good."

"We had to cancel one game due to a possible COVID exposure, and then the last game got rained-out," adding, "The parents were happy the kids were playing. The girls were happy to play. It was a great fall for us … despite the circumstances." Bachtel stated.

We used the field at Bark Hill, which we’re hoping to use again, so we won’t have any conflicts with baseball and things like that because there’s a lot more space over at Bark Hill. The fields are not lighted so "we had to modify our practice times … but we made it work and the parents were very accommodating…"

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