The Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference has decided to move to spring some fall events in sports that the NCAA classifies as high contact risk.
The NCAA classifies football, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s volleyball as high contact risk. A decision on the timing of the fall events in basketball, which is also classified as high contact risk, will be made in the near future.
The conference will proceed with fall events in golf, tennis, cross country, swimming, diving, indoor and outdoor track and field, men’s lacrosse and women’s lacrosse. It will also schedule some competitions for baseball and softball in the fall that won’t count toward league standings.
“In adjusting to the challenges presented by the pandemic, these modifications maintain safety as the highest priority but help ensure the opportunity for as much participation as possible in each [conference] sport,” the conference said, in a statement. “In addition, the conference feels that as continued scientific and testing gains are made with respect to the COVID-19 virus, a spring season for the high contact risk sports will be safer for our student-athletes.”