Echo/Stanfield's Kendra Hart pitches during a state playoff game against Taft on May 23, 2018.

PENDLETON — Lane Maher has a routine he uses to train for his track and field season every year.

First, the Pendleton senior track star warms up the muscles with a round of stretching. Then, he’ll start his running drills. Next, he practices his hurdling to perfect his technique and endurance.

It’s a straightforward but effective regimen that has worked well in his favor the past three years — Maher was the Intermountain Conference champion in both the 300 and 110-meter hurdles as a junior, and went on to become the 300 meter hurdle 5A state champion that same year, and also placed second in the 110 meter hurdles.

While he still takes to the track every day, things are more different now than they’ve ever been before.

This year, he won’t have any meets to compete in, new records to break, a team to practice with, or another state championship to vie for. Maher is one of the countless high school senior athletes across the state whose spring season was taken from them after Gov. Kate Brown shut down all Oregon School Activities Association events for the remainder of the school year because of the COVID-19 pandemic in what was to be his last season as a Buckaroo.

“Finding out that your favorite sport has been canceled in the last season you’ll get was very hard for me to deal with,” said Maher. “There was so much potential in this season for a lot of people that was washed away because of this situation.”

Maher had big goals in mind for his final season with the Bucks. He wanted a shot at another state title, as well as to break the Pendleton High School record for the 110 hurdles, which is currently held by Kelly Simpson with her time of 14.46, set in 1999.

“This is my bread and butter,” Maher said. “This is what I love to do, and this season is something I’ll never get back. This spring is a lot different. Trying to find something to do and stay busy is hard at this point.”

Maher plans to attend the College of Idaho in Caldwell after graduation, where he will pursue a degree in engineering. He will also continue his track career at the college.

And Maher isn’t the only local senior athlete whose high school athletic career unexpectedly came to an end.

Hermiston senior utility player Bailee Noland was ready for her senior softball season — the Bulldogs’ second in Washington’s Mid-Columbia Conference. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, instead of spending her spring days out on the diamond with her coaches and teammates, she’s been working on a farm.

“I believe it’s a great opportunity for me to learn new things every day that I will need in the future, and I love working outside, so it was a win-win,” she said. “But softball was always the reason I was so excited for the end of the school year, because I knew I was going to get to ball out with my teammates.”

Noland signed a letter of intent to play softball at Salt Lake City Community College in December 2019, so she will still get to take to the diamond once again — just as a Bruin, and not a Bulldog.

“I’m missing the atmosphere the most,” she said. “Us girls would walk into practice, and we would all start joking and laughing. It was a great time, and when we would go play on the field, it was even better. Having fun, I believe, made us play better.”

Stanfield senior Kendra Hart is also feeling the heavy absence of softball in her life. A Stanfield student, Hart is a lefthanded pitcher at Echo, with whom Stanfield co-ops in softball.

Hart is a three-sport athlete, competing in volleyball, basketball, and softball, but she noted that softball was her favorite of the three.

“I was really just looking forward to playing the sport,” she said. “I was looking forward to laying it all out there and making memories.”

While her time on the diamond as a Tiger came to an untimely end, Hart will be back on the field next spring, as she will be joining the Columbia Basin College softball squad while studying dental hygiene. In the meantime, she has been helping her parents around the house, applying for scholarships, and polishing up her softball skills when she can.

“I was pretty upset about it,” she said about the cancellation of her senior season. “It still seems so unreal. It hasn’t quite hit me yet that my high school sports career is over for good. It sucks. I’d do anything to be back on the field with my teammates.”