An NCAA Division III conference, with one Kentucky school included in its membership has decided to move forward with some fall sports and to delay others until the springs. In a statement Monday morning, the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Council of Presidents announced that they had unanimously voted to modify the timing of conference competition and championships for fall sports classified by the NCAA as high contact risk.
Those sports include football, men’s and women’s soccer, and women’s volleyball. The Conference will move the start of those sports’ competitive seasons to the spring.
Officials say the decisions on shifting the competitive seasons for these high contact risk sports came “after careful analysis of whether HCAC institutions could successfully fulfill NCAA testing recommendations without drawing vital health resources from their local communities.”
On the upside, the conference presidents stated that due to their risk classifications as assigned by the NCAA,” the HCAC will progress forward with fall seasons in the sports of golf, tennis and cross country. The Conference added that it would also schedule some competitions for the sports of baseball and softball in the fall that will not count toward league standings.
As for winter sports in the conference, the conference announced that a decision on the timing of basketball season will be made in the near future. Swimming and diving is classified as a low contact risk sport and will continue forward with its standard schedule. The sports of indoor and outdoor track and field, men’s lacrosse and women’s lacrosse have also not been altered at this time.
The Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA’s Division III. Member institutions are located in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Member schools include: Transylvania University, Anderson University, Bluffton University, Defiance College, Earlham College, Franklin College, Hanover College, Manchester University, Mount St. Joseph’s University, and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
