Parents spring for students’ bus to watch MHS

County school system opts out for class makeup

BY ERIC HANLON The Dominion Post

With spring edging ever closer, one would think the days of canceled school, games and practices for area high school basketball teams would be long gone.
Old Man Winter had one last trick up his sleeve.
Because there were so many snow days this school year, Monongalia County administrators opted not to support transportation for Morgantown High students to Charleston for the boys’ basketball state tournament game Thursday.
“Because they’d been out of school so much, with the snow, the county felt that the kids needed to be in school,” MHS athletic director Dan Erenrich said.
The MHS players and head coach Tom Yester were less than pleased by the decision.
“Down here, it’s about school spirit, so what good is it without any spectators?” Yester said. “These kids are student-athletes and the students have supported them all year, so they should’ve been able to come.”
A number of MHS students still made the trip, just on their own dime.
“The parents got together and paid for a bus for the students and I really appreciated that,” Yester said.
“When we heard that they got a bus together so the students could come down, that was really nice,” MHS senior Sam Runner added.
Of course, with Morgantown playing Capital — located in Charleston — in the tourney’s opening round, the game was clearly not played on a neutral court.
Aside from the obvious fan favor the Cougars attracted from being a local team, the Capital student section was much larger — more than double that of the MHS student section.
“All of my close friends found a way to get down here, but I know that if the school sponsored a bus we would’ve had a lot bigger of a turnout,” Runner said. “But, we still got a good number of people to come, so that was good.”
Even though the school system declined to sponsor a bus, those that did attend the game will not face disciplinary action.
“It’s an excused absence, so they’ll be able to make up the work,” Erenrich said. “The bottom line is, the kids had parental permission and the parents took care of the bus, so the kids were excused.”