With fall sports underway there has been a sense of normality for many students.  However, there have been a few major changes. One of the biggest changes is the limited amount of fans allowed to attend. For the football and volleyball games this year, only 250 fans are allowed in the game and tickets are not available to the public. Each player is allowed two tickets that they can give to family or friends and that is all the tickets that are given out. 

With only two tickets per player they are going mostly to parents there have been little to no students at the volleyball games this year.  Since there have been fewer fans and no students the extra energy boost from the crowd has not been what it was. Senior captain Jenna Gleason said, “We need to bring more energy ourselves to keep the momentum. Talking more throughout the play and being intentional about celebrating every point really helps us stay in the game.”

With the limited amount of tickets being given out many family members have not been able to go to the games. It has been very disappointing especially for senior families that the majority of their family can’t be at the games. Daria Stransky, mother of  football captain Zach Stransky said, “With tickets limited, siblings not getting to watch a brother play his possibly last football game after years of being there is also disappointing.”

With no tickets open to the public most people cannot come to watch the games in person. Even though fans are not allowed to support in person they can watch the games on Owatonna live and show their support there.  Head football coach Williams said, “I think they (the players) feel supported by the number of people who are tuning in to the Live stream broadcasts and the radio. Those numbers have been overwhelming.”

 Owatonna Live has been streaming all the volleyball and football games this season. So far there have been thousands of viewers streaming the games. In the first football game of the season Owatonna live reported 6,198 people streamed the game.

Football just finished their season on Tuesday, Nov. 17 and the last volleyball game was slated to be on Saturday, Nov. 21 at 12:30 p.m., but on Nov. 18 Gov. Tim Walz paused youth sports in Minnesota as a response to COVID-19.