Mars Area High School senior Alek Johnson summed up her thoughts with one, stark word.

“Heartbroken.”

The senior guard on the Mars girls basketball team was gearing up for her final basketball season with the Planets.

But on the eve of the start of the winter sports season, Alek and athletes like her all across the commonwealth will have to hang up their sneakers, wrestling singlets and swimming caps — at least for the time being — after Gov. Tom Wolf and the Pennsylvania Department of Health released new COVID-19 mitigation guidelines Thursday afternoon.

The tightened restrictions put a pause on all extracurricular school activities. The mandate takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Saturday and lasts until 8 a.m. Jan. 4.

Alek had a premonition before practice Thursday that the tipoff to the season on Saturday was in jeopardy.

“I told a teammate, 'I'm not sure if I have a good feeling about this,'” she said.

A few hours later, Alek and her teammates received the news that the season was postponed.

“We were so close,” Alek said.

But Alek and the Planets received a reprieve late Thursday when a game was thrown together for Friday at North Catholic, slipping a contest in just before the hiatus

“I'm just so grateful we get the opportunity to play a game before the shutdown,” Alek said.

Butler Area High School athletic director Bill Mylan also had one, blunt word to describe the feelings about the pause at his school.

“Disappointing,” Mylan said. “That's the big word here. It's disappointing. It's disappointing for our athletes and coaches who work hard.”

Not all is lost, however, for other schools and players as well.

Because the mandate doesn't begin until 12:01 a.m. Saturday, schools like Butler that had winter sports events scheduled for Friday are moving ahead with those contests.

The Butler boys basketball team still plans on hosting Latrobe. The Butler girls basketball team still plans to travel to Knoch to take on the Knights.

“Those games are on as of now,” Mylan said Thursday evening.

Moniteau has taken things a step further.

The Warriors' boys basketball team will play two games Friday at the Neshannock Tip-Off Tournament.

Moniteau will play the hosts at 6 p.m. and then either Shenango or Mercyhurst Prep at 7:30 p.m.

“(Moniteau athletic director John Stoughton) called me and said, 'Hey, do you want to play two tomorrow?'” said Moniteau boys basketball coach Mike Jewart, chuckling. “I said, “Sure, let's do it.' So we're doing it. The only time I've ever played two games in one day is in summer league.”

The Moniteau girls will host Clarion after the tournament they were scheduled to play in at Brockway was shelved and its replacement game against Karns City was also scrapped.

The Seneca Valley boys and girls basketball teams will also play Friday.

The postponement of the winter sports season by Wolf came a day after the PIAA, the state's athletic governing body, met and decided to plow ahead with the start of the winter season, despite objections from school principals and superintendents.

The move by Wolf came as a shock to few, unlike in March when the winter sports campaign was paused and then outright canceled by the coronavirus pandemic with the Butler boys and North Catholic boys and girls basketball teams still alive in the state tournament.

“We had a heads-up and weren't blindsided by it,” Mylan said.

While sports can resume Jan. 4 at the end of Wolf's three-week pause, events won't actually start that day.

Schools will have to hold at least four practices before a competition can be held, making the earliest start date Jan. 8.

Until then, athletes like Alek will have to do what they can after Friday to stay in shape and stay ready for a season that they hope will resume in earnest in January.

“I'm going to do whatever it takes,” Alek said. “We're definitely going to have to be creative. We also have to keep our heads up and stay positive.”