Nik Hall is a student at ASU's Cronkite School of Journalism assigned to cover North Canyon by AZPreps365.com

For the North Canyon girls’ basketball team, this season has created a sense of gratitude for its seniors and coach Levon Brown has reminded them it's all about family. 

“We talk about family a lot in this program. I’ve been coaching for about 25 years and I’ve been at every level. And every place that I’ve ever gone to, I preach family and being together. And in a time like this, this is where family really does come into play.” 

Come into play it has.  

“I think we’re just beyond grateful,” senior Sierra Rides said. “Because we all know how close we were to not even getting a season.”  

Earlier this year, the AIA decided to cancel all winter sports because of the high number of COVID-19 cases in Arizona. This was hard for seniors Cayley Vakiner, Anna Frechette, Sierra Rides and May Rogers to grapple with. It was around this time last year when schools shut down in person learning and told their students not to come back from spring break. 

“When this first all started, I thought this was an extra week of spring break. Nothing big, we would be back in school soon,” Vakiner said. “My Spanish teacher was talking about how we wouldn’t go back to school for the rest of the school year, and I thought he was crazy.” 

You know the story. As time went by, things stayed closed. Some schools never allowed students back on campus. Businesses struggled and cases rose inside of Arizona. 

 “Last year’s seniors didn’t even get a graduation or a prom. So, I started thinking, what if that’s going to be the same,” Rogers said.  

None thought at this time last year their senior season would be canceled. “We tried to stay positive, but it was pretty hard when you see all these bad things happening,” said Rides. “We kind of felt a little safe because our season had just ended and it was the furthest one away, but it just never stopped.” 

Even coach Brown was confused. Why had their season been canceled after the state had just finished a fall season, in the middle of a pandemic?  

Despite the unanswered questions, the AIA resumed the winter sports season on Jan. 12 with strict rules. All players, coaches and officials must wear masks the entire game. Up to two parents or guardians may attend an athlete's home games. And mandatory coronavirus monitoring. 

Brown and his players agree wearing masks to play games is not their favorite thing to do. But they all agree they would rather play in their final season wearing masks, than not have a season at all.  

Frechette said while it is harder to breath with a mask, coach Brown and the officials are understanding enough to let players pull down their masks for a second to catch their breath when they are away from other players. 

It is hard for players such as Rogers who has multiple family members wanting to attend games. With only nine home games this season, the chances of these players having even immediate family members attend games is microscopic.  

This puts a rigorous demand on high schools to stream each game so the public and players' families can watch. While most of the games are streamed, the quality of the streams themselves had a lot of problem at the beginning of the season.  

A harsh reality is the season could still be canceled at any moment. "I wasn’t trying to get my hopes up,” Frechette said, “What coach told us at the next practice we had was play each game like it’s your last and enjoy it while you can. Because you never know what’s gonna happen.” 

It's a whole new perspective to “enjoy it like it’s your last” when your season is threatened by the coronavirus. 

“It’s hard to look over and I can’t see my little ones either,” Brown said. “But I know that I can look on that floor and see my five family members there and look behind and I see the rest of my family and my staff there too. And I know that a part of my family is with me. And we are all together just pushing through. We’re going to do this together.” 

For the North Canyon Girls’ basketball team, they will face the unknown surrounding this season in the only way they know how. As a family.