On Monday, the NC State women’s soccer team announced that, due to its roster being depleted by injuries and international players not returning to the country, it would not be competing this fall. Head coach Tim Santoro said his team wanted to play but that simply wasn’t possible with the amount of players they had.

“We were intending to play,” Santoro said. “We would love to be playing right now. This isn’t a choice because we were making a political stand or we were worried about the virus. Our protocols have been great. Our testing has gone great for our team. We wanted to play. We just simply ran into a numbers crunch.” 

The Wolfpack had three internationals who were set to join the program, but with uncertainty surrounding visas, travel restrictions and a season happening at all, Santoro said it was best if the three of them signed professional contracts in the spring.

In addition to the three internationals who were set to join the Wolfpack prior to signing professional contracts, Santoro said the team’s three returning internationals, midfielder Toni Starova, defender Lulu Guttenberger and goalkeeper Maria Echezaretta, did not return for the fall, but he said all three will return to the program for the spring semester.

With just the internationals missing, Santoro said they were prepared to play with the amount of players they had but knew they could not lose anyone else. Unfortunately for Santoro, two players were still not at full fitness due to injuries from last year and two other players got injured during training last week, which was the final straw for pulling the plug on the season.

“Once we lost those five, six players it just became a low roster,” Santoro said. “We had two injuries returning who aren’t quite back yet and then we had two in training last week. Once those happened last week in training, I just said, ‘I owe it to our institution and I owe it to the other coaches in the ACC to make a decision before we get into a schedule and a season.’ And that is what I did.”

Another factor in the decision was a late change to the schedule for the fall season, which has yet to be announced in full. 

“We got into a room last week with the conference and all of a sudden, we were told the schedule’s changing again,” Santoro said. “It was going to be more games. Right then we were like, ‘They’re not single game weekends; they were going to be double game weekends.’ So now we are playing with a small roster on a double weekend. Which I wasn’t in 100% favor of. But then when we had the injuries ultimately, in practice, it just became not safe. It’s not safe to put such a small number out in the field. You’re going to have more injuries in the span of a season. I’ve never gone through a season without injuries. So it’s not like just because we have 16 or 14 field players, because we need them, they aren’t going to get injured.”

Apart from the internationals, who are not returning to the country this fall, Santoro said none of his players wanted to opt out. 

“We talked about that early in the summer, midsummer,” Santoro said. “Everyone was comfortable that, if I was going to bring them back, we were going to have the protocols and we were going to do it safely. There was never any apprehension about that at all. The girls were all in.”

In addition, Santoro said just one player has tested positive during the preseason and she is already back training with the team.

“We’ve had, in the four weeks we have been here, I think we have had over 150 tests,” Santoro said. “We’ve had one positive. That was four weeks ago and she is already back. The protocols have been great. I can only speak for my program but it’s been flawless.”

The original statement made on Monday said the team would turn its attention toward the 2021 season but also mentioned the possibility of playing in the spring if that became an option. 

“We are just going to have to see how the fall goes,” Santoro said. “The NCAA put out a nice statement that sounded like they were trying but I don’t think they know right now. They’re going to want to see how the fall goes, see where the virus is. It is hard to guess. There are 280-plus teams that aren’t playing this fall. It is not like we are just one of a small number… I think there is going to be some sort of plane; I just don’t know if it’s going to be as elaborate as a season with an NCAA tournament and all that. I would be shocked if we saw an NCAA tournament in the spring.”

While there will be plenty of other opponents the team could possibly play in the spring, with many conferences deciding to postpone their fall season, Santoro did not rule out the possibility of a spring season that sees the Wolfpack play ACC opponents.

“In a normal fall you’ll have to play 20 games, and that is what we’re allowed to play this year,” Santoro said. “[The ACC] is going to play eight plus a conference tournament, plus they might add a few nonconference, but most of the teams are trying to target around 10 games counting games this fall which would leave them 10 in the spring. So we would have the option, if the ACC allows it, and our administrations and institutions allow us to pay for that we could play another eight to 10 game ACC schedule. That is what we would love to do but, again, a lot of that is out of our hands. From the way it sounded, those remaining games you have from your 20, you can pretty much do what you need to as long as you are allowed to. So ACC games could happen. Absolutely.”

While focus will be turned toward next fall, or possibly this upcoming spring, Santoro’s team will continue to practice throughout the fall, something he said seems almost natural due to the loss of this year’s spring season.

“Like the spring season would be training, lifting, running,” Santoro said. “We won’t be playing in competitions. But just like we would in the spring, we train four, five times a week. We lost the spring, so for us, it is like we get to go back and do that part of the season… I said it yesterday to someone: It is a logical progression. You have five months off, now you train for four months, we will take a Christmas break and then whatever they tell us we can do in the spring we will do. In a weird way, it is the way it should be.”