The fall sports season will be upon us before we know it. Some of the first signs were shown recently when some teams released their full schedules for the upcoming season. The schedules are out for all the fall sports.

I will get into more detail on them in the upcoming days as well as preview their seasons but here a few of the highlights.

The Barton women’s soccer team will see four foes that ended the season ranked in the Top 20 including the home opener on the hill Aug. 28 against Iowa Central. The Cougar women will have two road games under their belts by the time they play at home.

Two of the clubs ranked last season are Jayhawk foes Butler and Hutchinson.

The men’s soccer team will have three teams that were ranked at the end of last season. The Barton men will also open with a pair of road games before kicking off their home season Sept. 3 against the Sterling College JV.

Look for the first NJCAA polls to come out in early August.

The volleyball team will face five non-conference foes that played in the NJCAA National Tournaments last season. The Cougars will open their volleyball season in Lamar, Colo. for a Classic before facing Garden City Aug. 26 at the Barton Gym for its home opener.

Barton will also be in challenging Classics at Northeastern JC in Sterling, Colo. as well as the Johnson County Challenge in Overland Park in September.

The men’s golf team will play in four events in the fall including the final meet of the fall season on Oct. 19 in the Barton Invitational at StoneRidge.

The women’s golf team will have its usual three conference meets during the fall. The first of those will take place at StoneRidge as Barton hosts on Sept. 28-29.

The cross country teams will open their seasons at home with the Barton Invitational Aug. 21. Defending NJCAA National Champion Lydia Mato will be back to defend her title for the women.

Several athletes are just more than a week away from arriving on campus before the start of the fall semester to get ready for their seasons.

The Pan Am Games are underway in Toronto and four former Barton track athletes are taking part. Laverne Jones and Simone Facey will run for the women while Alsonso Edward and Leevan Sands will compete for the men.

Jones runs in the 100m for the Virgin Islands while Facey will run in the 200m for Jamaica. Edward will also run in the 200m for Panama while Sands will triple jump for the Bahamas.

Sands road to the triple jump was quite interesting. Even though he had met the qualifying standard and thought he was on the team for the event when he got to Toronto the games’ organizers said he could not compete. The Bahamas were to have just one competitor. But after some haggling Sands was added to the event a couple days later.

I will have a rundown on how those athletes fared early next week.

Finally, good luck to all the student athletic trainers this season. It looks like a good bunch as they just wrapped up their summer camp here on campus.

The award winners for speed taping were Great Bend freshman Branden Paden and Wilson sophomore Kevin Johnson. The winner for the Most Flawless Taper was freshman Alex Canfield.