The Pearl River Soccer Club started games on Sept. 19, and aside from a few cancellations due to inclement weather, has managed to continue play during the ongoing pandemic. The club’s teams have been facing opponents from Louisiana, and at first there was uncertainty whether or not that would be possible because of COVID-19 restrictions.

In the older age groups, soccer is played with 22 players on the field, 11 vs. 11.

However, because of COVID-19 protocols in Louisiana, the first couple of matches that took place were seven on seven games to limit the amount of people on the field.

PRSC President David Ortmann said that after the first batch of games Louisiana’s restrictions relaxed and now teams are able to play full squad matches.

Ortmann said there are COVID-19 guidelines in place for players and parents of the club, but for the most part the sport has helped community members feel some sense of normalcy.

“Over here it’s been soccer as normal for the most part. We practice, have fun and don’t even think about it. It’s been pretty good. We went through all of this and life is moving on now,” Ortmann said.

The importance of having a fall season could not be understated for PRSC.

Because of the COVID-19 outbreak the organization didn’t get to have a spring season in early 2020.

Ortmann said if the PRSC also went without a fall season as well, then it would be hard to drum up interest and get as many athletes to sign up in the future.

“The kids would’ve been devastated, but from a group perspective, if an organization says, ‘We’re starting in January, but we didn’t play in the fall.’ Then they’ll have lost all the interest. Big clubs would survive, but for small clubs that big chunk of players would not come back and play,” Ortmann said.

Some games have had to be rescheduled due to inclement weather from the multiple hurricanes and tropical storms that have hit the area.

To make up for that, the U6 and U8 teams will have two games a week for the last portion of the season to give all the teams an opportunity to get in their originally scheduled number of games.

Competition will continue until the second week of November at which point the fall season for the PRSC will end.