Student athletes stay ready for season amidst new practice regulations

With COVID restrictions limiting practices for Trevecca’s sports teams, student athletes have found new ways to keep themselves prepared for their coming seasons. 

In light of COVID-19, Trevecca’s volleyball and men’s and women’s soccer seasons have been pushed to spring. In compliance with NCAA’s Resocialization of Collegiate Sport guidelines, practices are not happening as they regularly would. Instead, coaches have to rely on their athletes to find ways to keep themselves in shape and mentally prepared for the newly moved season. 

One way some of the freshman athletes have been both socializing and keeping themselves fit is by utilizing the sand volleyball courts on campus. Nightly games of pickup sand volleyball occurred during the first few weeks of school, allowing for some fun and camaraderie between Trevecca’s newest batch of athletes. 

Security has been watching the courts to ensure that the games stay within COVID guidelines, and Trevecca’s Intramurals director, Korey Moses, sent a reminder out through the TNU Intramurals app to remind students that face masks are mandatory on the courts. 

Sophomore soccer player Annie Warner and her team have been finding places to practice together off-campus. 

“We’ve been visiting various parks and scrimmaging each other. We also have been working on our own to do fitness and weight training, and running,” Warner said. 

The teams are not permitted to have coaches at their practices, but Warner said the captains have been reaching out to the team to lead practices. 

The only regularly scheduled team competing this fall, the cross country team, has several precautions in place in order to ensure their health and safety.

“We don’t wear masks while we run, but after our warm-up we have to put the masks back on to do our stretches. We also have to run in groups no bigger than three, and we have to try to keep ourselves spread out. We can’t ride with each other to practices, and everyone will be sitting in different rows on the buses. When we travel, we are also going to have more hotel rooms so we don’t pack people in one room together,”  Jess Bishop, a sophomore runner, said. 

Bishop said the team will be COVID testing before every meet, and that masks and social distancing are still the expectation during practices and meets.