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Snow has pushed more than a few sleds down the city's hills this week, but now it's pushing high school sports schedules up against a wall of time.

With conference and state tournaments starting as early as this weekend, schools will face difficult choices to fit in everything, particularly with Guilford County Schools canceling after-school activities again today.

"There's still a little bit of wiggle room, but it's not pretty," said John Hughes, Northwest Guilford's athletics director. "You're going to lose games either way."

Northwest has rescheduled two basketball games and canceled two indoor track meets and a wrestling meet in the past week. Basketball will prove the most tricky, with the conference tournament starting Feb. 15.

"We're in some serious bad shape," Hughes said Thursday.

State rules allow teams to play only four games in a calendar week, assuming one is on Saturday. If that precludes teams from finishing the regular season by next weekend, they can either write off the remaining games or cancel the conference tournament to finish the original schedule. The problem with the latter scenario, Hughes said, is that the basketball tournament is by far the conference's biggest fundraiser to cover awards and other expenses for all sports.

"We really try to preserve that as best as we can," Hughes said. "On the other hand, you want to preserve the integrity of the regular season. You have to balance the two. You'd hate to have it not be even."

Some snow casualties won't be made up. The girls basketball game Wednesday between Bishop McGuinness and Dudley, which would have been the fourth installment in an annual nonconference series, will not be recovered with the season so close to an end.

Bishop, tied for the Northwest 1-A/2-A lead at 9-2, still has five conference games left and is scheduled to play four in five days starting tonight. The Villains' practice Thursday was the first time head coach Brian Robinson saw his team in a week, the longest weather-induced holdout he's faced in 16 years of coaching. His players have texted him constantly that they've been trying to keep in shape playing at the YMCA, but he said getting them back in the mental routine of competing likely will be the biggest hurdle.

"We always talk with them about things we can't control and how to approach them," Robinson said. "You can't control the weather. It's something that you just kind of roll with the punches as it comes in."

Regional swim meets were the first casualty at the state level, with Saturday's 1-A/2-A events canceled and the 4-A meet pushed back to Sunday. (The 3-A meet is still scheduled for Saturday.)

"You get to be in this for a long time; you just take it as it is," Hughes said. "You can put out all these scenarios, but you know what? Just worry about today."

SWIMMING: When those swim meets do get started, Metro 4-A champion Grimsley will be a favorite on both sides of the Central Regional.

Whirlies sophomore Percy Gates leads all qualifiers in the 50-meter freestyle (22.21 seconds) and 100 freestyle (48.55), but is followed by less than two-tenths of a second in each by Northwest senior Chad Burton. When the two schools met Jan. 22, Burton won both events. On the girls side of the 50 freestyle, Northwest's Kristin Diemer qualified fourth in 24.82 followed by Grimsley's Natalie Labonge at 24.98 — again, a mark posted in winning the event against Northwest on Jan. 22. Diemer also qualified fourth in the 100 freestyle.

Western Guilford junior Harrison Brogden has the top qualifying mark in the 200 freestyle (1:47.46) and 100 breaststroke (53.16). Grimsley's Willie Mendelson is second in the 100 breaststroke at 54.14.

Northern Guilford, fresh off sweeping the Mid-State 3-A conference titles, should be competitive in the 3-A Eastern Regional on Saturday. The Nighthawks' boys 200 medley team of Ian Robinson, Walker Flynn, Kyle Riker and Randy Chen is seeded fourth. Robinson also is ranked fourth in the 100 backstroke (1:00.38), and Riker is on the sixth-seeded 200 freestyle relay team with Charlie Lambrecht, Matt Sexton and David Hawkins. Lambrecht, Flynn, Robinson and Chen also come in fourth as a 400 free relay team. On the girls side, Mary Lawless is fourth in the girls 50 free (26.37), third in the 100 free (56.71) and is on the fifth-ranked 400 free relay team, along with Veronica Farrell, Paige Becker and Emma Jessee.

BASKETBALL: Jay Canty of Oak Ridge Military Academy, Jonathan Frye of Northern Guilford, Aaron Toomey of Bishop McGuinness and Brennan Wyatt of Dudley have been named McDonald's All-American nominees. No girls players from Guilford County were nominated.

Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or tom.keller@news-record.com