Article from Roanoke.com
The Virginia Tech men’s soccer team’s season opener against visiting Virginia on Saturday night has been postponed because of COVID-19 issues on the Tech squad.
Tech announced the postponement Friday. The game has been rescheduled for Oct. 14.
An anonymous Virginia Tech source with knowledge of the situation declined to say how many members of the Tech men’s soccer team had tested positive but said the problem was not necessarily the number of positive tests but rather the subsequent contact tracing. The source said multiple Hokies were unavailable to play.
Tech’s Oct. 10 game at second-ranked Pittsburgh will now become the Hokies’ season opener.
With the game against fifth-ranked UVa moved to Oct. 14, the Hokies’ Oct. 16 game against visiting Notre Dame has been pushed back to Oct. 18.
Tech men’s soccer coach Mike Brizendine had discussed the potential fallout from COVID-19 tests this season in an interview Wednesday.
“Every test, you’re just sitting there kind of holding your breath a little bit that you don’t get a call from somebody saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to shut this down,’ ” Brizendine said Wednesday. “The good news is we still have plenty of room in our schedule to adjust if we need to.
“We may have to rearrange a game, but I’m still grateful we’re playing.”
Tech and UVa are each playing only six regular-season games this fall. ACC men’s soccer teams are playing an abbreviated fall schedule because of the coronavirus pandemic but will also play games next spring.
Saturday night’s game was also supposed to be the opener for 2019 NCAA tournament runner-up Virginia. The Cavaliers’ Oct. 9 home game against Louisville will now serve as the UVa opener.
The soccer game was not the first sporting event to be affected by COVID-19 issues on a Tech team.
Tech announced Wednesday that it was pausing volleyball matches and practices “based on the lack of availability of multiple members of the Virginia Tech team.” Four volleyball matches were called off because of positive tests on that team and subsequent contact tracing.
Virginia Tech’s Sept. 19 football opener against Virginia was postponed because of positive COVID-19 tests on the Tech football team and subsequent quarantining of some players.
|
(
In response to this post by HOaKIE)
Posted: 10/03/2020 at 10:30AM