MARSHALL — Winter sports are officially a go.

Just 10 days after holding a special session meeting that ended with high school football and volleyball getting their seasons moved back to the fall, the Minnesota State High School League board of directors met again on Thursday to discuss the postseason outlook for fall sports as well as starting dates for winter sports.

For winter sports, the board decided to approve a “maximized season” plan with a 30 percent reduction in contests (maximum of two per week), with the last two weeks allowing for three contests per week to help with rescheduling any events postponed due to COVID-19 or weather.

Dance team will begin their first practices on Nov. 9, followed by boys hockey, adapted floor hockey and boys basketball on Nov. 23, alpine/nordic skiing, wrestling, boys swim and dive and girls hockey on Nov. 30 and gymnastics and girls basketball on Dec. 7.

The delays from their traditional start dates for winter sports were made to help minimize any overlap with the fall seasons. Volleyball, in particular, ends a month later than normal.

Gymnastics, dance, boys swim and dive and nordic and alpine skiing will be allowed a maximum of 11 contests during the regular season. Hockey and basketball will be allowed 18 games in the regular season, while wrestling will have 16 match days and a maximum of 32 competitions, if all of them are triangulars. There will be no tournaments or invitationals during the regular season.

Sections, but

no state for fall

While there will be section tournaments for fall sports in the coming weeks, there won’t be any state tournaments, meaning sectional tournaments are the culminating events for fall teams. A motion was made for a “super regional” that would be played after the section tournament and involve section champions playing each other in the final week of each respective sport, but failed in a 10-8 vote.