While the Women’s Volleyball team isn’t having a fall season, they’re planning on a full conference season this spring. Head coach Mario Andaya and sophomores Laynie Erickson, Macy Wilke and Sydney Remsberg talked about what the plans are for the team this year. Whether fans will be allowed at games remains unknown. However, there won’t be any NCAA tournament this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The volleyball team has always had a non-championship practice season in the spring with exhibition games against regional NCAA DI schools to see the new recruits and their skills. This year, however, the volleyball team will have a practice season in the fall scrimmaging against themselves. Andaya said practice mainly includes socially-distant drills.

“They’ll start getting used to reps again,” Andaya said. “But for the most part, really trying to get as many quality touches within this new format of social distancing and masking as much as we can.”

For players, it wasn’t easy hearing that a potential season would be pushed to spring and that there wouldn’t be an NCAA tournament either.

“I think initially hearing it was tough, but we’ve just been able to keep training and luckily we’re still able to practice with masks and social distancing just in preparation for any competition we will get in the spring,” Erickson said. “We’re just still looking forward to at least competing in our conference in the spring even though there’s no NCAA championship.”

The team had a week off from doing any workouts after being tested for COVID-19 and began practicing last week after everyone tested negative, according to Erickson. Practices are socially-distant with players wearing masks and splitting into groups to minimize close contact. 

Wilke said they have to spray everything down. 

“Lots of disinfecting, lots of hand sanitizer, we all get a hand sanitizer [bottle] with our number on it,” Erickson said.

Wilke said if the spring season doesn’t get canceled they’ll have had extra time to prepare. 

“I think we’re just keeping in mind the end goal of hopefully competing, but also if we don’t get to compete, using this time to better ourselves for the next time we get to compete,” Erickson said.

With the possibility of an extra year of eligibility, assuming the season happens, they can withdraw after 10 games. Extra eligibility will be granted if the spring season gets canceled due to COVID-19. 

Whether or not athletics has a season this spring, the volleyball team will hold practices.