Women’s volleyball at Fullerton College has begun their preseason workouts and are finally able to do in-person conditioning with restrictions due to COVID-19.

Head coach Megan Tomicic said the team had a slight scare when two student-athletes were exposed to someone who did test positive for the virus. Fortunately, the two student-athletes both tested negative.

While waiting for their results the two players were required to quarantine at home to sit out of practice until their results came back.

Tomicic said other than that slight hiccup everyone is excited to be outside and with their teammates getting ready for the upcoming season.

Tomicic also stated that she feels safe having her and the team practicing on campus. She also said the athletic training staff is doing a great job at creating an environment where everyone feels safe.

The equipment has not been shared between the team, so practice is more of a big team workout until they are permitted to fully practice. Each student-athlete is assigned a ball and that is theirs for the day and they can use only that ball the entire practice.

Another big task this season for Tomicic is having a lot of out of state student-athletes, 8 in total on this year’s team. Tomicic said it’s been tough not having very many answers as to when they will be able to start competing either against each other or even against other teams. A schedule has still been yet to be released for all FC athletics.

It is unfortunate that these student-athletes came to Fullerton College to take part in the volleyball program and due to COVID-19 their season has been placed on a massive hold.

“I don’t know how much longer I could have done zoom for, I would rather be outside working together than be on zoom,” Tomicic added.

The zoom calls within the team consisted of workouts they could do from home and the student-athletes would download the Nike Run app and they were required to run a mile a week and share their results on the app with the team.

They also had a separate workout app to track the workouts, they would do three workouts over zoom with the rest of the team and one by themselves. Along with working out, they were also reading a book as a team called “The Winning Element”.

Coach Tomicic is optimistically looking forward to competing, scrimmaging 6 on 6 and sharing equipment leading up to this spring 2021 season. She also sees a lot of opportunities to play very well within the conference.

A big emphasis for Coach Tomicic during this pandemic is maintaining strong mental health. She wants to make sure her players can continue to do what they love and continue to love what brought them to Fullerton College.

The Fullerton College women’s volleyball team is hopeful they can display their talents this upcoming season. However, with Orange County and many other counties in California moving back into the purple tier this can prove to be another bump in the road towards returning.

Only time will tell if the FC women’s volleyball team will be able to return to competition but if they do, the Lady Hornets are prepared.