Snowy weather postpones many high school events

The chance of up to a half-foot of snow on Long Island has prompted mass changes in high school sporting events Saturday, forcing the delay of several championships into the next week.

Estimates Friday called for a 70 percent chance of snow, falling mainly in the morning hours and accumulating 4-6 inches.

"If it takes a turn and we get hammered then it makes sense," said Todd Heimer, the executive director of Section VIII, the governing body for high school sports in Nassau. "But even if we get a dusting and we err on the side of caution, that's fine with me."

Heimer said transportation concerns in certain districts motivated Section VIII to move the events.

"We had two districts which said, 'we're not putting our kids on the road tomorrow,' " he said. "And the other thing is that it behooves us to be cautious and put these contests on another date. I do know that logistically it can be difficult, but we have sports coordinators in those sports that can do the best thing for the interest of the whole county."

The three wrestling qualifiers for the county tournament in Nassau have been moved to Sunday. The Long Beach qualifier will start at 10 a.m., Mepham's qualifier begins at 3 p.m. and the Massapequa qualifier starts at 4 p.m. In Suffolk, the six league championships will be contested but have been moved back two hours and will start at 11:30 a.m.

The Suffolk fencing championships will go on after a delay of two hours beginning at 11 a.m. The Nassau fencing team championship was rescheduled for 10 a.m. on Sunday.

The Suffolk boys and girls bowling championships were postponed until 10 a.m. on Monday. The individual Bowling tournament in Nassau is postponed until Tuesday at a time to be determined.

The Nassau swimming finals have been postponed until next week, although no date has been determined.

The Nassau Class A boys and girls track championships has been postponed and is yet to be rescheduled.

While the times have been changed, the venues remain the same for each qualifier and championship.