Recently the COVID-19 rules and regulations have been altering. These alterations are somewhat becoming more strict. Prior to these changes, many sports and extracurricular activities began to get back to their previous schedules — specifically, girl’s soccer.

FC Golden State North County girls U-15 soccer team has recently returned to play a season that includes some important modifications. Freshman team member Brooke Ferguson has experienced the change that has been occurring within club sports from the very start.

“Right when COVID started my whole team had to stay home for three months before we could start practicing together again,” Ferguson said.

Once the team had the ability to start practicing there was some controversy, considering that some individuals were strictly cautious about COVID-19. These members didn’t feel comfortable about going back to play in the time of the pandemic.

“When we were able to start practicing with each other some members decided it was safer to stay home instead of going back to practice with the team,” Ferguson said.

Club teams were having to travel to different locations in order to play matches against other clubs. Despite the fact that the team had to put in so much effort in order to just get a few games out of the whole season, it was a good experience for the teams to be able to play a somewhat normal game for once this year.

“Over Thanksgiving break, my team went to Arizona for a soccer tournament since there are still restrictions with sports in California,” Ferguson said.

While going back to play for three games, one on Nov. 27 and two on Nov. 28, was a refreshing opportunity for the girls, they still have many restrictions that keep the team from having a normal season.

“Ever since COVID-19 started my team has only been able to practice, but recently we have been scrimmaging other teams while still wearing masks on and off the field,” Ferguson said.

Overall, the teams have had to change everything about their regular season. From trying to do athletic activities with precautions like wearing masks and taking each player’s temperatures to being unable to have a real match for months.

“The most difficult thing about playing a sport during COVID is not being able to have a regular season with my teammates and having to go out of state just to play a normal soccer game,” Ferguson said.