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Southern Connecticut Conference 2020 Girls Volleyball Season Preview

2020: The 2020 season began Thursday, October 1. Due to the late start, all SCC teams will play 12 regular-season games. The goal is to have each of the three divisions have playoffs where all teams qualify.

Division Alignment: There are 19 schools, divided into three divisions that compete in SCC volleyball in 2020. These divisions will be in effect for the 2020 season only. With CIAC mandating regional play due to Covid-19, we have had to shuffle the deck this year and welcome Whitney Tech and Platt Tech to the fold.

Divisions

A: Amity Regional, Shelton, Jonathan Law, Foran, Lauralton Hall, Platt Tech

B: Mercy, Sheehan, Lyman Hall, Cheshire, North Haven, SHA

C:  Daniel Hand, Guilford, East Haven, Hamden, West Haven, Whitney Tech

N0te: Branford just announced it can play indoor games, and received a hybrid schedule. It will be determined shortly what division it will compete in.

Defending Champs: Guilford won the 2019 SCC championship with an exciting five-game match against a talented Shelton squad.  Cheshire, Guilford, Shelton, Law, Amity, and East Haven either won or shared their respective division titles last fall. Guilford would make a run at the Class L title, before falling to Avon in five games in the championship game.

Here is the SCC’s schedule for Friday, October 2. 

Check with each school for their spectator policy and video streaming opportunities.

Boys Soccer

West Haven at Notre Dame – 4 p.m.

Guilford at Daniel Hand – 6 p.m.

Amity Regional at Shelton – 6 p.m.

Lyman Hall at Sheehan – 6:30 p.m.

Hamden at North Haven – 7 p.m.

Cheshire at Xavier – 7 p.m.

Girls Soccer

North Haven at Hamden – 5 p.m.

Mercy at Cheshire – 5 p.m.

Sheehan at Lyman Hall – 6:30 p.m.

Wilbur Cross at Career/HH – 3:45 p.m.

Daniel Hand at Guilford – 3:45 p.m.

Lauralton Hall at West Haven – 6 p.m.

Jonathan Law at Platt Tech – 3:45 p.m.

Shelton at Amity Regional – 4 p.m.

Girls Volleyball

Daniel Hand at Guilford - 3:45 p.m.

Foran at Lauralton Hall - 5:15 p.m.

West Haven at Hamden - 5:30 p.m.

Lyman Hall at Sheehan - 5:30 p.m.

Girls Swimming & Diving - virtual meets

Shelton vs. Sacred Heart Academy - 3:30 p.m.

Daniel Hand vs. North Haven - 4/7:30 p.m.

Lyman Hall vs. Sheehan - 5/7 p.m.

Girls Cross Country

East Haven, Platt Tech, Sacred Heart Academy at Jonathan Law @Eisenhower Park - 3:45 p.m.

Branford, Daniel Hand at Mercy - 3:45 p.m.

Boys Cross Country

East Haven, Platt Tech, West Haven at Jonathan Law @Eisenhower Park - 3:45 p.m.

Branford, Daniel Hand at Xavier (@Mercy HS) - 3:45 p.m.

SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT CONFERENCE BOYS CROSS COUNTRY 2020 SEASON PREVIEW

The 2020 boys cross country season begins Thursday, Oct. 1. 

The defending SCC champion is Xavier; the runner-up was Guilford

Twelve of the top 25 runners at the 2019 SCC championship meet return to action in 2020, led by Amity Regional junior Mason Beaudette (3rd in 2019) and Cheshire senior Ryan Farrell (6th)

SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT CONFERENCE 2020 GIRLS CROSS COUNTRY SEASON PREVIEW

The 2020 girls cross country season begins Thursday, Oct. 1. 

The defending SCC champion is Guilford; the runner-up was Amity Regional.

Twenty of the top 25 runners at the 2019 SCC championship meet return to action in 2020, led by Sheehan senior Elisabeth Brown (2nd in 2019).

The 2020 Fall Sports season is here, at last!  

Competition in boys/girls cross country, boys/girls soccer, girls swimming, girls volleyball and field hockey will begin on Thursday, October 1.

Click on each SCC member's schools name on the bottom left side of the SCC homepage for their schedules.

Updated: August 26, 2020 - CIAC Releases Updated Fall Sports Plan (pdf)

The following is from the CIAC’s website, www.casciac.org

CHESHIRE, Conn. – At its September 16, 2020, meeting, the CIAC Board of Control reaffirmed its September 3 decision to cancel full contact football for the 2020-2021 school year. This decision was made in alignment with the Connecticut Department of Health’s recommendation that football is a high-risk sport and should not be played this fall. The board did, however, agree it would consider allowing competition at a later time for a sport that cannot hold its regularly scheduled season, such as football, provided it does not negatively impact spring sports.

DPH continues to recommend substituting “higher risk” athletic activities with “moderate risk” or “lower risk” options and /or postponing those activities to a later time. In alignment with those recommendations, by the end of this week, through its football committee, the CIAC will recommend low and moderate-risk football activities in which schools may continue to engage their football athletes.

“CIAC made every effort to weigh all factors in this decision, including the passionate voices of students, parents, and school personnel, and ultimately made the determination to align its decision with the recommendations of the Governor’s office and DPH to not hold high-risk sports at this time,” CAS-CIAC Executive Director Glenn Lungarini stated. “In conversation with other state associations across the country, it was clear that a key factor in playing interscholastic football was alignment with the opinion of their state’s governor and state health agency.”

After consulting with DPH and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), it was apparent that CIAC’s football plan, though endorsed by the CSMS Sports Medicine Committee, will not sufficiently mitigate the risk to lower the categorization of the sport from “high risk” to “moderate risk.” DPH encouraged CIAC to seek affirmation from the NFHS that its proposed mitigating strategies would meet the standards required to recategorize football from its classification as high risk. CIAC immediately consulted with the NFHS which responded by stating that, “As each state association has its own SMAC and state department of health/health agency, the NFHS SMAC will not exercise approval or disapproval of individual state guidelines.” Furthermore, in discussions with the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents (CAPSS), it was made clear to the CIAC that its members are not public health experts and, as such, on the matter of playing football, CAPSS would defer to the appropriate state and local public health authorities.

The CIAC is concerned that DPH’s recommendation to postpone higher risk sports to a later time is reserved for CIAC sanctioned interscholastic athletics. In fact, as the CIAC is not sanctioning a football season at this time, schools, with approval from their local DPH, may opt to play full contact football as a “club” sport, similar to girls ice hockey, without adherence to CIAC COVID mitigating plans. The CIAC has previously tried to make DPH and the governor’s office aware of the inconsistency that permits our same student population to engage in non-interscholastic high risk sports with less oversight and fewer COVID mitigating strategies. Furthermore, the CIAC has expressed its concern that this inconsistency promotes an inequity in sport opportunities.

In consideration of playing football at a later time, the board seeks to better understand factors such as, but not limited to, the following:

How many sports are impacted to the extent where it cannot compete during its regularly scheduled season?

What other public health strategies have become available and are supported with better research?

How will facility scheduling be impacted?

The impact to field maintenance and playability.

The viability of synthetic surface fields passing the G-max test during winter months.
How has the COVID climate in Connecticut improved to support interscholastic high-risk athletics at a later time?

The CIAC has released its plan for a return to interscholastic athletics this fall. A point of emphasis throughout the development of this plan is the fluid nature of planning around COVID. While sports in Connecticut have been successfully running since late June, with COVID health metrics in our state improving along the way, the CIAC understands that education-based athletics experiences differ from club, AAU, and recreational offerings.

The plan was developed in consultation with the Connecticut State Medical Society Sports Medicine Committee, state officials, medical professionals, athletic trainers, superintendents, principals, athletics directors and coaches. Everyone involved in the development of the plan recognizes that it must remain fluid, and that it will be in a perpetual state of evaluation as COVID data and health metrics become available. Furthermore, while the fall sports committee included representation from many educational leaders, CIAC respects that a more detailed review by our exceptional education leaders may prompt changes as final preparations for the school year are made and more COVID information becomes available. The complete document outlining the plans can be viewed here: CIAC Fall Sports Plan Document

The plan allows for a shortened fall sports experience with regional regular-season play following an extended conditioning acclimation period. The season will end with the best available option for tournament play within regions or leagues. The goal is to allow for as many participation opportunities as possible for all teams and schools within the challenging current circumstances, and for that reason tournament experiences will not follow traditional CIAC Fall State Championship formats. Specific requirements and key dates for each sport are included in the document.

The plan indicates that 15 student-athletes was determined to be a reasonable number for coaches to work with on conditioning and skill progressions while schools return to in-person instruction. There will be a three-week progression designed to slowly reacclimate student-athletes to the physical and skill conditioning level appropriate for interscholastic athletics given the extended layoff that athletes may have experienced since last March.