Irvine Valley student athletes in baseball, men's and women's tennis, men's volleyball, women's beach volleyball and women's badminton returned to campus on Feb. 16 to begin conditioning again with the hopes of having some sort of aspring seasons.
They will get that chance after IVC opted in for Spring II Sports competition with the California Community College Athletic Association last week. The baseball, women's badminton, men's volleyball and men's and women's tennis teams will play Orange Empire Conference schedules that can begin on Saturday, Apr. 10. No fans and only players, coaches and IVC staff will be allowed at the events.
The women's beach volleyball team will take the limited action opportunity and compete in scrimmages instead of playing an actual schedule.
The ability to compete, however, will be contingent on a number of issues including local, state and national CoVID-19 policies at the time of competition. It will also be contingent on the implementation of CoVID-19 safety protocols for competition including testing, transportation, equipment sanitization, etc.
Irvine Valley opted out of California Community College Athletic Association Spring I Sport competition due to the surge of COVID-19 cases, pandemic conditions throughout the Southern California region and the stay-at-home order in the state in mid-December. Those sports included men's and women's soccer, men's and women's basketball and women's volleyball.
Those five sports will have the opportunity to play two scrimmages this spring and the student athletes in those sports were scheduled to return to campus this week for conditioning.
Irvine Valley teams began conditioning/training again - and were some of the first in the state to do so - last October. Laser squads, with health protocols, including advanced health screening, temperature checks, mask wearing and social distancing each day that they trained, were on campus until early December.
The CCCAA established it's COVID-19 contingency plan this last June (2020).
For more information on the CCCAA's return to play guidance, visit the CCCAA website.
