GALION — Fall sports athletes and others are being affected by COVID-19.

In recent days, Galion’s youth football and cheerleading leagues, Northmor’s volleyball program and all extracurricular activities at Crestline High School have been suspended or put on hold.

This announcement was made this week on Facebook:

Members from the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference Youth Football League met today and discussed the upcoming football season. These six teams include Delaware, Galion, Harding, Pleasant, River Valley and Shelby. These schools are placed in four different counties, all of which are currently under different levels of restrictions. After a lot of discussions, regrettably the unanimous decision was made to cancel the 2020 Youth Football season for the MOACYFL. The league wanted to wait until the last possible time as we held out the possibility of a season, but it became apparent that was not feasible this year.

Galion Youth Football has also made the difficult decision to cancel the flag football season due to the same concerns. All refunds will be processed electronically how you paid within the next few business days. This isn’t what any of us wanted; however, it didn’t make sense for us to continue with so many unknowns based on what we do know now and the constant changes on restrictions.

Among several factors, one of the largest was the unknown. We do not know what orders may be in placed from the State of Ohio that limit competitions as a contact sport. As of now, we can not safely comply with the restrictions in regulations in place for contact sports. We are sure, the majority of you are aware of the current guidelines. The board made a very difficult decision to cancel the seasons, but we felt as leaders, parents and guardians that it was the safest, most responsible decision for our youth and for our community members.

All the Galion Youth Football and Cheer Board agree that it is important for our kids to be involved in something because sports are so important for kids as they develop mentally and physically.

We have decided to offer a free football camp and a free cheer camp for Galion School students only.

Please stayed tuned for further information on both.

And at Northmor, this announcement was made:

All activities related to the volleyball program are temporarily suspended for a period of 14 days. The decision to suspend these activities is based on a student athlete testing positive for COVID-19. The Morrow County Health District has contacted us and they are in the process of contacting those potentially impacted as well as contact tracing. Our intent is to thoroughly disinfect areas exposed. Furthermore, we plan to resume volleyball on Monday, Aug. 3, 2020. We will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates accordingly.

And this announcement was made in Crestline to parents of middle school and high school athletes, cheerleaders, flag corp, and majorettes:

We were notified that a few of our student athletes were exposed to coronavirus at an off-campus location recently. As a result, we will be postponing all athletic and extracurricular practices until Aug. 1, 2020. We will be working with the health department on necessary communications and return to activities protocols.

Please monitor the health and wellness of your children during this time.