GNAC suspends competition in all fall sports, including cross country...
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| Western Washington runners compete in the 2018 Central Washington Invitational (Paul Merca photo) |
Due to continuing health and safety concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference's CEO Board, comprised of the presidents of GNAC-affiliated schools, and athletic directors, decided it was best to suspend all conference athletic events and championships scheduled for the fall quarter.
Friday's announcement, which affects all 17 sports sponsored by the GNAC, precludes contests of any kind against outside competition regardless of whether a sport is in the championship or non-championship segment of its playing calendar. Conference members will have institutional autonomy regarding organized practice activities, according to the CEO Board.
The announcement means that this fall's cross country season is suspended for the four GNAC members in the state of Washington--Central Washington, Saint Martin's, Seattle Pacific, and Western Washington.
The GNAC release is available here.
Last week, the Pac-12 announced that the conference will schedule conference-only play for several of its fall sports, and that it is delaying the start of mandatory athletic activities, until a series of health and safety indicators, which have recently trended in a negative direction, provided sufficient positive data to enable a move to a second phase of return-to-play activities.
According to the conference's release, the Pac-12 has developed a series of potential fall sport scheduling models including Conference-only schedules and delayed season starts. Details on Conference-only schedules will be announced no later than July 31.
On Wednesday, the University of Wisconsin, which hosts the Nuttycombe Invitational cross country invitational, announced that the meet would be cancelled, in light of the fact that the Big Ten Conference was also going to a conference-only schedule for its teams this fall.
The Nuttycombe meet, which the University of Washington, Washington State University and Gonzaga University have attended, is one of the biggest invitationals of the cross country season, and a meet that schools try to accumulate points towards national rankings and ultimately, an invitation to the NCAA championships in November.
While it is too early to make a judgment, these announcements taken as a whole, leads one to believe that there will not be a collegiate cross country season this fall, or if there is one, there may not be a national and/or regional championship meet.
NOTE: The Great Northwest Athletic Conference, the Pac-12, and the University of Wisconsin contributed to this report.
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