Nauset Prepares To Host Winter Sports Off Campus

ORLEANS – As construction at Nauset Regional High School rolls on, the school’s winter sports teams are preparing to play their respective seasons at alternate sites.

Nauset High athletic director John Matson said that although there are many factors that will make this year’s winter sports unique, the high school teams have gotten off to a good start while practicing at Nauset Regional Middle School in Orleans as well as Orleans Elementary School.

“We’re in a new facility, we’re practicing at different times, and we’re dealing with a lot of new factors, like transportation and getting kids over here and working with the middle school staff and their custodians and the elementary school’s staff and custodians,” Mattson said. “It’s been a lot more logistics figuring all of that out, but everyone has really been working together.”

Nauset’s boys and girls varsity and junior varsity basketball teams will practice and play games at Nauset Middle School, while the freshmen boys team will play at the elementary school.

Wrestling will also be practicing and holding one match at the middle school, boys and girls track will have their meets at Wheaton College, and the boys and girls swimming teams will continue to host their meets at Willy’s Gym in Eastham.

The biggest difference in the venue change has been the times that the high school teams are practicing. With Nauset’s middle school basketball teams often practicing right after school, the high school teams have been practicing later into the night.

Mattson said there are a couple late buses that have helped transport student athletes to the middle school, and he noted the high school also has vans that can be used to transport students as needed.

Although it’s not the ideal situation, Mattson said he’s been encouraged by the way the different teams and schools have come together to help the high school athletes make the most of their winter season before the new gymnasium opens next fall.

“It’s obviously a little bit different, but at the end of the day we’re playing the same sports,” Mattson said. “The biggest thing is everyone has been really working well together and being really flexible and understanding of what we’ve got going on at the high school. Everybody is working together, and it could be a lot worse.”