“It’s great. It’s cool to play important tournaments here,” said Ozark foreign exchange student, Melissa Peralta-Sanchez.
Melissa has quickly made the adjustment from playing tennis with her dad at the club in Mexico to now playing with a high school team in Ozark, Missouri.
“It’s funny because when I play against whatever school all of the people here are so scared, because they know the people, but I don’t know any people here, so I only go and play,” Peralta-Sanchez said.
Melissa won the COC conference tournament, finished first at districts, and became the first girl in Ozark school history to qualify for state in singles. But on Friday the ninth, her host family received a dreaded call.
“My heart sunk, and I felt sick,” Melissa’s host mom Linda Murrow said.
A student Melissa sat next to in class on Monday the 5th started to feel sick later that week and ended up testing positive for the coronavirus. Meaning Melissa would have to quarantine 14 days, and miss the state tournament.
“Obviously, if I have COVID or something, I understand the rules,” said Peralta-Sanchez.
Melissa has taken two negative COVID-19 tests and continues to feel fine.
“It’s hard because I don’t want to be rude, but I want to fight for her with everything I’ve got. She obviously doesn’t have her parents here to fight for her. All they can do is kind of sit back in Mexico and wait,” said Murrow.
So, Linda begin calling everyone she could possibly think of to get approval for Melissa to play, but she kept running into walls.
“The school is saying the health department would have to release her from quarantine, and the health department is saying it’s the school’s decision, not ours,” Murrow said.
For Melissa all of the success she’s had this season makes this situation that much worse.
“I don’t know if these people are better than me, and I’m never going to know if I don’t play,” Peralta-Sanchez said.
“Unless a miracle happens, a policy changes, somebody’s heart is moved; I don’t know, I don’t know what else can happen,” said Murrow.
As of Wednesday night, Melissa is scheduled to take a rapid COVID-19 test at 7:45 am Thursday, and if it comes back negative, she will be allowed to play in the first round of the State Tournament at 9 am.Â
