Solano programs finally back this fall
Women’s volleyball, soccer teams did not play last year due to pandemic
The last time that the Solano Community College women’s soccer team played a match was Nov. 21, 2019. Five days later, the Solano women’s volleyball team played its final match.
If you think the lines at Disneyland are long, that’s nothing for the Falcons.
Both Solano programs will return to action in August after not being able to play in 2020-21 due to the pandemic.
In some ways, the Falcons have been back since last spring as they were able to condition outside starting on April 12. In July, the women’s volleyball team transitioned back into the gym for the first time.
Volleyball coach Darla Williams said her team has been practicing twice a week at the moment and will ramp up as the team gets closer to the season opener on Aug. 27. The Falcons’ first home match is on Sept. 8.
Williams said her team trained outside on the soccer field last spring with a net up in the grass. The Falcons played in one scrimmage at Santa Rosa Junior College.
“We actually played really well and we only had six sessions outside at the time,” she said.
The Solano soccer team also starts the season on Aug. 27 with the first home match scheduled for Sept. 14.
Falcons soccer coach Jeff Cardinal said his team’s summer program runs from mid-June to early August. Then the team will take a short break before starting up again prior to the season opener.
“We had five weeks in the spring, and that was positive,” Cardinal said. “We were glad to be back and then we hit the ground running in the summer.”
Williams and Cardinal said their roster sizes are normal for this time of the year. In fact, Williams has 15 players during the tryout period and she’ll likely have to trim a few to get ready for the season.
“We had potentially seven returners but two moved on to play at fouryear schools and another was pre-med and that was her focus, so we’ll have four returners (from 2019),” Williams said.
Lindsey McLaughlin moved on to play at Humboldt State, and Kayla Somontan signed with Simpson University in Redding.
Cardinal said he doesn’t expect to make any cuts to his roster.
“We had a big returning class (in 2019) with 12 sophomores,” he said. “We expected to have about five or six returners but some of the players did a lot of academic work because everything was online so four moved on academically. We only have two sophomores right now.”
High school volleyball in Solano County returned last spring and Williams said she recruited heavily from the Monticello Empire League.
“It worked out. I wasn’t used to recruiting in the spring,” Williams said. “But it helped that we were training in the spring as well.”
It was the same scenario for Cardinal as he tried to see as many potential schools in the area as possible in the shortened season.
“Most of the seasons were only in April and May,” he said. “It was pretty crazy as far as trying to see all of the teams.”
For now, the volleyball team is fully masked at all times and the players are tested for the coronavirus twice a week. Williams isn’t sure what will happen in the fall but she is hoping that the entire Bay Valley Conference will have a universal rule on masks, whatever that may be.
“The good thing is, the president of the volleyball association is from Los Medanos, so I think we’ll find out right away when there is a decision,” she said.
Williams said 10 of her 14 players are vaccinated.
Cardinal said a “good amount” of his players are fully vaccinated. He doesn’t ask but the players often talk about their first and second shot at practice.
Just like volleyball, soccer players have to be fully masked and are tested twice a week. There hasn’t been a final decision reached as far as games in the fall.
“I would say that it seems like Solano is more conservative when it comes to testing and masks than a lot of places,” Cardinal said. “During our outside training, we are fully masked 100 percent of the time.”
Full previews of the two programs will appear in the Times-Herald and The Reporter in August.