ROCHELLE — Remote learning has provided many challenges for students and teachers throughout this school year. Those challenges have also impacted coaches like Tony Rowan, who admitted the last few months without athletic participation have made it tougher for he and his staff at Rochelle Township High School to make a difference for student-athletes.

Rowan and the Lady Hub basketball team reunited for practice Monday afternoon, coming together for the first time since the program’s fall contact days in November. The return to play marked a step in the right direction as Illinois continues making progress in its recovery from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With Region 1 returning to Phase 4, high-risk sports like basketball can not only practice, but compete against conference and intraregional opponents.

“Getting back to competition will be huge for us,” Rowan said. “We’re happy to be face-to-face with the kids again and we want to compete. We’ve interacted with the kids through posts on social media or our Google Classroom and we’ve shared workouts they could do on their own. We had some competitions that we’ll be able to give our prizes for as well. We’ve also been texting and emailing with the kids so we could let them know we’re thinking about them.”

The IHSA will hold a board meeting on Wednesday to release a revised calendar for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year. Under current reacclimation guidelines, basketball programs must conduct 12 practices before playing their first games, meaning the Lady Hub varsity team could return to the court against local opponents as early as February.

“Getting conditioned is going to be huge,” Rowan said. “Having a long layoff and then having to wear a mask while running is going to be a huge difference for the kids. We’re going to do a lot of skill development during our contact days and our practices and we really want to keep things simple. We don’t want to throw too many plays at them and we know our season will be pretty short, so we want to make the most out of the time we have with each other.”

The Lady Hubs will field a roster this coming season filled with multiple upperclassmen including seniors Sofia Lenkaitis, Afi Gati and Alexis Sanford. Juniors like Lucy Bunger, Zoey Tabor and Josie Lundquist are entering their third varsity seasons as well. Despite roughly two months of inactivity and lingering unknowns regarding the season, Rowan said the experience Rochelle’s varsity players are returning with this season will help the team get back on track quickly.

“It’s definitely going to be interesting,” Rowan said. “Our girls know what to expect in terms of the competition and a lot of programs are in the same position we are in terms of the long layoff. If we commit ourselves over the next few weeks, we can really jump ahead of some teams. I still want the girls to come in, work as hard as they can and treat everyone with respect. Those standards haven’t changed and our goals are still to come in and get better every single day.”