On April 29, University Interscholastic League officials postponed all public high school athletic competition until May 11 because of the swine flu outbreak.

The move suspends the baseball and softball seasons and originally eliminated the regional track championships, which were to start last Friday. All of this was announced by UIL Executive Director Charles Breithaupt. He said UIL officials acted on the recommendation of Dr. David Lakey, Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The state tennis and golf finals will still be May 11-12, and after consideration, the regional track meets were reinstated and scheduled for May 15-16 in San Antonio.

“You can set your initial plan, and that’s fine, but you begin to get feedback on that,” Lake Travis Director of Extra-curricular Programs Gary Briley said. “The UIL is always really good about being fair, and I think they realized how big of a deal it was to mess with track. When you go around the country, Texas track is the benchmark, so it’s important that it’s done right.”

The state meet will now be held June 5-6.

But track wasn’t the only sport affected at Lake Travis. The Cavalier baseball team is currently 26-3 and ranked No. 5 in the state, and already was playing the waiting game on the playoffs, initially scheduled to start this weekend. Now, Lake Travis will open the playoffs on Thursday, May 21 in a three-game series against Lanier.  The playoff rounds have been altered from there, as the Area Championship and Regional Semifinal will be one game only, rather than giving the team coaches the option of a one-game or three-game series, which they will still have in the Bi-District, Regional Quarterfinal and Regional Final.

The state tournament will now be held June 10-13.

In the meantime, they’ll stay in tune with intra squad scrimmages and a scheduled scrimmage against Cedar Park on Saturday, May 16 at 7 p.m.

“Having seasoned coaches like Roy Kinnan really helps us at a time like this because no one can handle their team as well as our coaches,” Briley said of the Cavalier baseball coach. “Those kids are going to get plenty of work to stay sharp.”

A few schools in Central Texas closed school and cancelled practices for a few days, but that was never really a consideration at Lake Travis, according to Briley.

“I talked with Mark Cousins of the UIL and got a feel for the situation,” he said. “It would be really bad for schools to cancel classes and skip practices. It has an effect on everything, including the health of the students. Even though we weren’t travelling for games and meets, we wanted to keep our kids focused and active.”