The Missouri Valley Conference announced Monday that the beginning of fall sports competition will be delayed until September 18. The move covers every fall sport offered by the conference, but does not extend to the football teams of member schools who compete in other conferences.
After the delay, competition will be limited to only in conference play for men’s soccer, women’s soccer, and volleyball.
Bradley University fields six fall sports teams: men’s and women’s cross-country, men’s and women’s golf, men’s soccer and volleyball. None of the teams have released a 2020 schedule yet due to the pandemic.
This announcement only affects competition, such as games, matches and meets. Practices and team gatherings have not been postponed by the conference.
The Valley follows several NCAA Division-I conferences that have already delayed or outright cancelled their fall seasons due to ongoing coronavirus concerns. The Ivy League announced in early July that it would not play a fall season, and conferences such as the Atlantic 10 and America East have announced that fall sports will now shift to the spring semester.
Several power conferences, the Big East, Big Ten and Pac-12, have announced that they will play conference-only schedules this fall.
At this time, winter and spring sport schedules remain unaffected, according to the MVC’s statement.
