Unfortunately the impacts of the CoronaVirus and the most up-to-date measures to prevent spread have now terminally impacted the NCBA’s chances of hosting any NCBA Division II post season activities.
Nearly all of the schools who have not shut down their club sports programs through the remainder of the year are under travel bans that are scheduled to be reevaluated on May 1st. Given this is the scheduled start date of the Regional Playoffs, it would be impossible for these teams to be able to compete with zero time to travel to the events if their travel bans were lifted that same day. Additionally with many states not announcing their plans to possibly reopen until May 1st, the NCBA will may not find out if the facilities they’ve reserved will even be open for use till day of.
Additionally the World Series host venue (Jaycee Ballpark in Pittsburg, KS) has been shut down through May 3rd when the state will reevaluate at that time if they will reopen the facility for use. Another detrimental hurdle is that the state of Kansas is under travel quarantine mandate issued by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE). This requires anyone traveling to Kansas who has traveled from or through CT, LA, NJ, IL, CA, FL, NY, WA, or abroad to be quarantined for 14 days upon arrival in the state. Given that most teams who may attend the World Series would be coming from some of these states or traveling through them to arrive in Pittsburg, KS, it would be impossible to conduct the event given players would either be in quarantine during the event or would have to arrive 2 weeks prior to the start of the event.
With that being said, it is with great disappointment to notify all NCBA Division II member teams that we must cancel the 2020 NCBA Division II Playoffs (May 1-3) and the 2020 NCBA DII World Series (May 15-19) scheduled to be held in Pittsburg, KS. With an insufficient number of teams potentially able to compete and no access to our World Series venue, hosting these events has become impossible regardless if the country were to “reopen” on May 1st.
With only 43% of the regular season having been completed prior to the outbreak, we have decided not to crown any Regional Champions or a National Champion this season
While we can all agree, this is certainly not how we envisioned or wanted this season to come to an end, it is the reality given the impact of COVID-19. We thank you all for your continued support of the NCBA and the love for the game.
We do wish we were in a much different state of the world and had much better news to provide. However, we have been optimistic throughout this process and will continue to do so. We hope that you can share in our optimism and know that we as a league will be better than ever in 2020-2021.
We will be in touch in the coming days and weeks with updates on this past season as well as the upcoming one. Also, please be sure to check your email regularly, as we will be in touch soon regarding plans moving forward to prepare for next season. If you have any questions in the meantime, please let us know. Stay safe!
Sincerely,
Sandy Sanderson
President
National Club Baseball Association
