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Penn College canceled all winter sports competitions for the remainder of 2021 spring semester in coordination with a unanimous decision by the North Eastern Athletic Conference Presidents' Council and Board of Athletic Directors.
This decision affects men's basketball, women's basketball, and wrestling (which conducts an independent schedule) at Penn College.
Penn College still plans to conduct team-related activities during the spring semester in accordance with the NCAA Resocialization Guidelines.
"Even though this decision may come as little surprise to most people, it is still very disappointing to our student-athletes, coaches, fans, and staff," Penn College Director of Athletics John Vandevere said. "We especially feel for our seniors and their families and will do everything we can to make their remaining experience impactful."
In a statement issued by the Conference, the NEAC Presidents' Council stated that given the current state of the pandemic, today's announcement is attributed to three main factors:
• Community spread and positivity rates are increasing in our local communities and are anticipated to continue doing so following the winter holidays.
• Challenges still exist around access to testing, affordable testing and turnaround time for results to meet the current NCAA recommendations of testing student-athletes and staff multiple times a week for a high-risk transmission indoor sport such as basketball.
• With a conference membership that spans throughout multiple states, current state and local travel restrictions do not allow for a geographically-diverse conference such as the NEAC to commit to a conference schedule that requires crossing state lines and potential overnight trips.
The NEAC will allow institutional autonomy regarding practice, training and outside competition opportunities for its basketball teams during the winter season while also requesting that institutions continue to adhere to local, state, and federal health guidelines as well as NCAA recommendations.
A decision on participating in spring sports competition will be made at a later date.