Wyomissing boys basketball team facing another pause, backed up schedule

As challenging as last season was for Wyomissing — starting the season a month late, a shutdown the first half of February and finishing the regular season with five games in five days — Spartans basketball coach Ryan Ludwig says this season has been even tougher.

The Spartans have been shut down due to COVID issues for the second time; they have postponed three games this week and won’t play again until Tuesday.

“The hardest thing is we haven’t been able to get into stride,” said Ludwig. “It’s been start, stop, start, stop. . . not a lot of practice time. We’ve probably put in half of the plays we’ve had in years past.”

Wyomissing was scheduled to play Elco tonight, Brandywine Heights Friday and Bishop McDevitt Saturday; all have been postponed. They’re expecting to play Tuesday at Kutztown, though Ludwig isn’t sure if they’ll be able to practice before the day before that game.

Wyomissing has postponed 10 games so far (including McDevitt twice). It postponed three games the week of Dec. 13 because its football team was coming off the PIAA championship game on Dec. 11; four of the Spartans’ starters play football.

There was a COVID shutdown the first week of January, and now a second shutdown this week.

Ludwig is hopeful all the games can be made up, though that might mean scheduling a doubleheader, as Wyomissing did last season, when it didn’t play its first game until Jan. 8. In order to get all its league games in before the BCIAA Tournament it played two games on the final day of the season, Feb. 20; it beat Antietam in the morning and Hamburg in the evening.

Ludwig is hoping to avoid another double dip but wants to get in as many games as possible.

“We want to do it for the kids,” he said. “They deserve to play all the games.”

The Spartans are 3-4 after a 64-34 loss to Cedar Crest Tuesday. They have played just one league game, a season-opening 47-33 crossover win against Tulpehocken on Dec. 21.

They entered the season as co-favorites in Berks III, along with Fleetwood. The Tigers are off to a fast start; they’re 8-1 entering a game tonight against Wilson. The Spartans play at Fleetwood Jan. 22, then host the Tigers Jan. 31.

“This has been a challenging season, to say the least,” said Ludwig, “but we’ll get it done. We’ve taken a couple licks there; we’ve had a hard non-league schedule. These kids are doing great (under the circumstances), but it’s been tough for us. From a coach’s standpoint, we haven’t been able to prepare as much as we’d want to.”

Ludwig said Wyomissing has had only about a dozen practices with the full team.