WAC, WCC announce there will be no fall sports

The Western Athletic Conference, in which Seattle U is a member, announced Thursday that its board of directors voted to suspend athletic competitions until 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“While heartbreaking and difficult, the health and well-being of our student-athletes remains the utmost priority and the decision not to compete this fall is in the best interest of the Seattle U community,” Seattle U athletic director Shaney Fink said in a news release. “We all grieve for what we have lost in this global pandemic. Though not at all what we had imagined for this fall quarter, we must now adjust our focus beyond competition and provide the best possible experience for our student-athletes.”

The fall conference championship sports affected are cross country, volleyball and soccer. Contingent on the NCAA fall championships being moved to the spring and if feasible, the WAC will conduct the respective sports during the same time frame.

The decision also affects the non-championship portion of the schedule for tennis, golf, baseball and softball with Jan. 1, 2021 set as the earliest opportunity for competition in these sports. For the Redhawks, women’s rowing will also follow the Jan. 1 guideline.

Men’s and women’s basketball and men’s and women’s swimming and diving competition will be postponed through the end of October.

• The West Coast Conference, which Gonzaga calls home, also postponed all conference fall competition.

The league says it is working on plans to ensure a safe environment to conduct the 2020-21 WCC men’s and women’s basketball seasons in the winter.

• The Big Sky Conference, which contains Eastern Washington University, has voted to postpone all fall sports competition until the spring. Last week, the Big Sky moved football to spring.

Golf

• Redmond’s Sean Kato won the Washington Men’s Amateur at Chambers Bay in University place by a stroke over Camas’ Brian Humphreys.

Humphreys started the day in second place and five strokes back in the 54-hole tournament. He caught Cato, a sophomore at Oregon State, on the 13th hole. They were tied until Cato took the lead back with a birdie on the 16th and he finished at 9-under (65-69-73-207).