SARANAC LAKE — Higher-risk winter sports for six teams at Saranac Lake High School didn’t have much of a chance to get going in preparation for a short season before positive COVID-19 tests among student-athletes put those programs on hold.

The good news, however, is that all those squads are expected to be playing their first games in the coming week.

Shortly after practices started on March 1, the Red Storm boys and girls varsity and junior varsity basketball teams and the hockey squads combined with Lake Placid were put on pause. All practices slated this week have been canceled through today, but Eric Bennett, director of athletics for the Saranac Lake Central School District, said teams are expected to be back to work starting Saturday.

In order to begin higher-risk winter sports including basketball and hockey, Franklin County required a test for every student-athlete prior to participation and then requires testing 20% of the athletes each week. A pool test first discovered Saranac Lake’s positive cases, and was followed up with retesting to isolate individual positives.

The individual tests found a positive or positives on both the boys varsity and junior varsity basketball teams and the boys hockey team, which resulted in those members being asked to quarantine for a longer period of time.

On Friday, Bennett said the boys hockey team was anticipated to be released from quarantine on March 14 and the boys basketball squads will follow on March 16. Girls hockey and varsity and junior varsity basketball players were no longer in quarantine as of March 6.

“With the mandate from Franklin County to initially test all athletes and then follow up with a weekly %20, we thought we were going to find a positive case,” Bennett said.

Some teams have already got in their six required practices and are set to compete in that regard, while others will have a busy slate of practices starting Saturday so they are ready to go next week.

Saranac Lake’s teams are scheduled to begin competing on Monday, with girls basketball kicking off their shortened seasons first. In those games, the Red Storm junior varsity and varsity girls are slated to play at Tupper Lake with matchups starting at 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. The same teams are then scheduled to meet again Tuesday in Saranac Lake.

The boys varsity and junior varsity basketball teams are scheduled to play their first games at Tupper Lake Tuesday. The combined Saranac Lake Placid boys and girls hockey squads, which will only be competing on the road, are scheduled to begin play on Wednesday. The girls game will be against Beekmantown at Scott’s Memorial Rink in Chazy beginning at 4:30 p.m. The boys combined team will play Saranac Central at the Ameri-Can North Sports Center in Plattsburgh with the opening faceoff slated for 8 p.m.

When asked whether it was worth attempting to launch a short winter season lasting only through the month of March, Bennett responded, “I think we need to do whatever we can to give the kids an opportunity.

“We’re trying to get some games in, and we’ll be as ready as we can be,” Bennett continued. “It hasn’t been easy, but if it all crashes and burns, at least we can say we tried.”