Winter has hung on too long.

While the snow mounds are slowly shrinking, lingering cover continues to wreak havoc on spring sport schedules at all levels across the region.

The Aberdeen Central softball program, for instance, held its inaugural game earlier this week after several earlier attempts that were thwarted by travel conditions. Central also talked its way into a spot in a Yankton home track and field meet on Tuesday, marking its first opportunity to compete in an outdoor meet all season, while the girls golf team headed to a tournament without a single outdoor practice.

“Obviously, the frustration level is pretty high,” said Central Athletic Director Dawn Seiler. “We’ve tried to do some things to get some teams some opportunities.”

Aberdeen Roncalli, after one outdoor competition – one in which senior Jayden Munroe broke two school records – is headed back indoors today, hosting a somewhat non-traditional meet at the Barnett Center. In mid-April, well after teams expect to be done with indoor meets.

“I can’t remember a spring where we’ve had such a delay to the start of the season, and by delay, I mean practice,” Seiler said,

It’s not just high school teams affected, either. With Fossum Field still under snow cover, Northern State head baseball coach Dean Berry harbors at least some doubts that his team will host a true home game this season.

That puts the Wolves on the road. A lot.

“It’s pretty normal to find neutral sites or reverse sites every year,” Berry said. “This year is different. A lot of those places (reverse site), nobody can play either. So we’ve had to find a neutral site somewhere.”

Most of those neutral sites have been in Iowa or Nebraska, Berry said. In fact, the Wolves just wrapped up a week-long stay in Wayne, Neb. last weekend, a trip that was prolonged by the last winter blizzard that blanketed the region and made it impossible for the Wolves to return to Aberdeen.

That put Northern’s total at 22 nights in a hotel since the start of the season. And that’s hard on a budget.

“You also get into the financial aspect of it all, too,” Berry said. “If you find a reversal site, your opponent pays for the trip because they had it in their budget already. But if you go neutral, you’re on the hook.”

All of which is to say nothing of missed class time and the stress of actually living out of a hotel room and a suitcase.

But, Berry said, that is something he talks about with his team almost daily.

“This isn’t what we signed up for, but the only thing we can do is make the best of it,” he said. “We can’t change Mother Nature, but just embrace getting on the bus. Embrace hotel stays. You’ll drive yourself crazy if you let it get to you. Our guys have handled it really well.”

Seiler said similar conversations have happened with her coaches and teams.

“Nobody is complaining,” she said. “This is the hand we’re dealt. A lot of sports is perseverance. We’ll just persevere.”

Conditions are improving, of course, but area schedules for at least the next week are already in flux. Northern, for example, has canceled its home track meet, set for April 20-21, while several area high school meets have been canceled as well.

That has as much to do with the conditions for the field events as anything. 

“Everybody understands what we’re doing here,” Seiler said. “They know this is something nobody’s chosen. … I think we’re doing everything we can possibly do to get our kids ready for competition. You can’t just throw them out there to compete if they haven’t been prepared.”