It came as no surprise on Monday as the East Penn Conference canceled all their winter sports tournaments.

Crowning a boys and girls basketball champion has traditionally come on the back of a league tournament, but with COVID cases wreaking havoc on the winter season, the league decided to cancel the tournament and use the extra time for teams to try and fulfill their 10-game regular season schedules.

“Due to the high number of postponements and cancellations, the EPC has made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020-21 winter playoffs,” said Dennis Ramella, former Emmaus athletic director, in a league statement. “Our main focus is to play as many conference competitions before the District 11 deadlines rendering playoffs impossible to schedule.”

The EPC tournament was scheduled to take place the last week of February, but the change in plans now gives teams an opportunity to play the bulk of their regular season through the first week of March, as most District 11 basketball tournaments will begin on the weekend of March 5-6.

It also gives teams some extra breathing room in case more contests are canceled because of COVID concerns or with the continued winter storms that have caused delays and cancellations.

The boys are scheduled to travel to Freedom Wednesday and then travel to Nazareth Feb. 13 before a home-and home vs. Becahi on Feb. 19 (at BC) and home on Feb. 22. The girls were to host the Pates Wednesday, then host Nazareth (Feb. 13) and Becahi (Feb. 19) and then travel to Becahi Feb. 22.