LAURINBURG — While public schools have had their sports seasons completely changed around, local private schools have been trying to make the season as normal as possible for their players.

Daryl Cook, the varsity volleyball coach at Scotland Christian Academy, said while the team is playing about the same amount of teams as a normal year, things have been different.

“We take their temperatures and everything before they come in for practice and everything, but what’s really hard on them is that their family can only come to home games,” Cook said. “It really sucks for the seniors because it’s their last year and their family is only able to see them play a handful of games.”

Cook also added the teams would usually provide water as well for the opposing team but due to COVID now they have to bring their own.

“Despite everything, it’s pretty close to a normal season for us,” Cook said. “But we were worried at first that we wouldn’t be able to have the season. I told the girls when this all first started that we were going to practice until they told us we couldn’t anymore, but luckily that didn’t come.”

While Cook is happy for his team being able to play their season, he feels bad for the teams who aren’t getting to play its normal season.

“We’re very thankful that we’re able to have our season,” Cook said. “And I really hate it for the public schools, especially the seniors to have their seasons messed up.”

Since beginning practices and games, Cook said they’ve been extremely fortunate the team has not had to stop practice or games due to the virus.

“Luckily these girls are pretty resilient,” Cook said. “The biggest thing we stress is being safe and not sharing their food or drinks and they’ve done really good at that.”

The SCA Volleyball team has six matches and the conference tournament remaining. The schedule is:

— Oct. 9: Home match vs Columbus Christian Academy

— Oct. 13: Home match vs Temple Christian Academy

— Oct. 16: Home match vs Antioch Christian Academy

— Oct. 20: Away match vs Antioch Christian Academy

— Oct. 22: Home match vs Sandhills Classical Christian High School

— Oct. 23: Away match vs Liberty Christian Academy

— Oct. 29-31: CCAA Tournament

Reach Katelin Gandee at [email protected].