KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Heart of America Athletic Conference, Heart Council of Presidents (COP), and Heart Task Force have announced a series of updates for the current fall season. | HEART COVID FAQs
The COP has voted to extend the conference's current spectator policies, originally announced last month, through to the end of October. The spectator policies include no visiting fans, 50% maximum capacity at each venue, and mask mandates for attending fans at all Heart member institutions. Links to each institution's individual spectator protocols can be found on the Heart Matrix by clicking here.
After schedule adjustments due to precautionary quarantine, the women's volleyball schedule will no longer consider cross-division competition a mandatory requirement for the current season. Cross-division matches are still permissible, if time allows, but will not factor into a team's overall conference record. This will allow teams to prioritize scheduling within their division for the remainder of their season ahead of the postseason tournament. Teams competing in the North Division are Clarke, Culver-Stockton, Graceland, Grand View, Mount Mercy, Peru State, and William Penn. The South Division is comprised of Benedictine, Baker, Central Methodist, Evangel, MidAmerica Nazarene, Missouri Valley, and Park.
The original postseason tournament schedules for men's soccer, women's soccer, and women's volleyball have been delayed one week to allow programs a longer runway for rescheduling contests during the fall semester. The setup of the tournament is still the same with eight teams qualifying and competing in three rounds hosted by the higher seed (quarterfinals, semifinals, championship). Due to the cross-division adjustment for women's volleyball, the qualifiers for the conference tournament will now be the top four finishers of each division. The adjusted tournament dates are:
- Men's soccer – November 14, 18, & 21
- Women's soccer – November 13, 17, & 20
- Women's volleyball – November 14, 17, & 21
