PEMBROKE — The NCAA Division II presidents council voted on Wednesday to cancel the seven fall sports championships for this season due to the impending threat of COVID-19.

The University of North Carolina at Pembroke fields five teams that would’ve competed for championships this fall, and now the plan for those fall seasons is up in the air. As of Friday, the Peach Belt Conference, which UNCP’s cross country, women’s soccer and volleyball teams compete in, and the Mountain East Conference, which UNCP’s football team is an associate member of, had not made decisions on an adjusted schedule for fall sports.

“As of Wednesday, 11 of the 23 Division II conferences had announced they will not compete during the traditional fall season,” the release from the NCAA reads in part.

Hours after the NCAA made its decision, UNCP director of athletics Dick Christy send out a video message to the university’s student-athletes and the campus community.

“Over the next few days, we are going to have conference meetings with both leagues. We’ll be discussing what merits there are to continue forward with fall competition and how we can do that in the safest manner,” Christy said.

A release from the Mountain East Conference on Thursday said that the league was working to determine how it will conduct fall sports.

“We remain, as always, committed to the health and well-being of our student-athletes,” the statement reads in part. “We also remain steadfastly committed to providing a competitive experience at the highest level we can achieve whenever possible during the 2020-21 academic year for all of our sports as public health conditions allow.”

The Mountain East announced in July that it would postpone the start of the fall sport season to Oct. 1, meaning the Braves wouldn’t start the conference-only 2020 football season until Oct. 3. The decision also meant that all games schedule from the start of the season to Oct. 3 would be moved to the spring semester.

These moves were mentioned in the NCAA’s release on Wednesday, and the release said this can happen as long as “they follow the requirements set forth by the Board of Governors.”

Eligibility was also discussed in the release from the NCAA.

“The Division II Administrative Committee approved waivers to allow Division II student-athletes to retain the use of a season of competition if their team completes 50% or less of the sport’s Bylaw 17 maximum contests/dates of competition for the 2020-21 academic year,” the statement reads in part.

The waiver remains as long as the student-athlete was eligible to play in the 2020-2021 academic year.

The Peach Belt hadn’t released a statement regarding the matter as of Friday. More than two weeks ago, the Peach Belt Conference made the decision to push back the start of fall sports to Oct. 1.

The 2020-2021 academic year was set to be the Braves’ final season in the Peach Belt. UNCP and Francis Marion announced in April that both institutions would be moving to Conference Carolinas in the fall of 2021.