NC State’s women’s soccer program won’t compete this fall
The N.C. State women’s soccer team finished 2019 12-7-4 overall and advanced to the third round of the round of the NCAA tournament.
The returning members of that Wolfpack team, however, won’t be able to build off of last season and carry that momentum into this one. N.C. State athletics announced Monday that its women’s soccer team will not compete this fall.
In a statement, the school said the team is dealing with a depleted roster, injuries and players absent from campus this semester. The Wolfpack women’s soccer team has several international players on the roster, and many have not returned to the country after students were sent home due to the coronavirus last March. The ACC was notified of the decision on Friday.
Head coach Tim Santoro said the testing and protocols have gone great for his team, so this had nothing to do with any players contacting the virus, nor was it a political statement. It was a pure numbers thing.
“We had three internationals who were going to come and they have professional contracts last spring,” Santoro said. “At the time we couldn’t guarantee them visas, I couldn’t guarantee them a season. I thought it was best for them to go ahead and sign.”
With so much uncertainty in the country over the summer, Santoro lost more international players. The team had two players who already weren’t back yet from injuries and two more got hurt in practice recently. He knew it was time to alert the rest of the conference that a season wasn’t likely.
“I owed it to the other coaches in the ACC before we (got) into a schedule or a season,” Santoro said. “That’s what I did. The girls saw a season get cut short last spring and they knew players were injured and they knew it was tough it was got injuries in preseason and we had a few.”
They were disappointed, but not shocked by the decision, Santoro added.
The soccer team will continue to train and hopes to compete in the spring of 2021.
On Aug. 21, the NCAA announced that it will attempt to host fall sports championships in the spring and that the Board of Directors approved a waiver that grants all DI fall athletes an additional year of eligibility, plus an extra year to compete.
Coronavirus clusters at NC State
N.C. State paused all athletics activities last week due to a coronavirus cluster within the program. On Friday, athletic director Boo Corrigan announced that 12 teams would be allowed to resume practice. The football team was able to resume practice on Monday.
N.C. State last week also switched to online classes for the remainder of the fall semester. Athletes were allowed to stay on campus and continue to practice and work out.
Wednesday afternoon, N.C. State announced it will close its campus residence halls in response to the spread of COVID-19. The university has reported 21 clusters since classes began Aug. 10. There have been 546 positive cases of COVID-19 at N.C. State since the pandemic began in March, according to the school’s online dashboard.
Of the 21 clusters identified at N.C. State, four are in campus residence halls. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services defines a cluster as five or more cases.
This story was originally published August 31, 2020 at 10:09 AM with the headline "NC State’s women’s soccer program won’t compete this fall."
