This spring’s weather has been good for the drought, skiers, snowboarders, and the Great Salt Lake’s levels. But it has been bad for spring sports.

“The weather this spring has made athletics very chaotic,” athletic director Eric Wood said.

“We have had almost 40 canceled or rescheduled games due to the weather. The hardest hit teams have been girls golf which has played one match, softball having only played in a tournament, and track which has only two meets so far.”

After playing in a tournament in Moab nearly a month ago, the girls softball team finally took the field again in a Feb. 12 game at Juan Diego. All those canceled games mean that the team had to play again the next day against Summit Academy.

The varsity and JV baseball teams are playing 16 games in the next two weeks. A normal season for Judge baseball would be four games per week between JV and varsity.

“This has been a challange because any time you cancel a game you have to try and reschedule it,” Wood said. “When you reschedule there are several factors you have to keep in mind and you do not want to schedule too many games in a week.” 

One of the factors making rescheduling difficult is the rules that come as being part of the Utah High School Activities Association, like what are the minimum number of games needed to qualify for the playoffs and when is the final day of the season.

Just to be able to qualify for the state tournament the softball team will have to drop some JV games and schedule double headers. The baseball team has had to cancel five games, but will only be able to make up two of them.

According to Wood another factor that makes rescheduling so difficult are matching the athletic calendar to the existing school calendar. Wood said that still another consideration is how many rescheduled games will be back to back and what is best for athletes regarding academics and possible overuse injuries.

“Trying to juggle all that and still get games in has been very tough this year,” Wood said.