First games next week as high school sports return

After three months of cancellations, Iowa’s high school athletes will return to the field next week, with the start of an abbreviated summer sports season. Baseball and softball games will begin Monday, June 15, and North Iowa Activities Director Meggon Jacobs says the conference schools have the schedule pretty well hammered out.

Roughly the first half of the summer season was cancelled, and some future games have also been called off due to Belmond-Klemme and Eagle Grove deciding not to play ball this summer. Those schools chose to be extra cautious in light of a high number of recent COVID-19 cases in Wright County.

North Iowa will have a busy first week on the ball diamond, as both the boys and girls are scheduled to play at Garner on Monday, at Northwood on Tuesday, home in Buffalo Center against North Union on Wednesday, and at Rockford for games in the morning on Friday. Regular game times are 5:30 p.m. for JV baseball, 6 p.m. for varsity softball, and 7:30 p.m. for varsity baseball and JV softball. Friday’s games at Rockford will start at 10 a.m., with JV to follow.