Practice days are the grind.

Some days it rains, most days it’s hot. It’s mundane and repetitive, running the same old drills against the same familiar faces.

Coaches preach and tweet messages with hash tags about embracing the grind, trusting the process, knowing it’s not always easy.

But game day is what makes the daily routine of practice worth it. That’s the opportunity to put on the school uniform and compete in front of fans with teammates who have been lifelong friends.

For many fall athletes, there have been no game days so far, just a lot of practices that may or may not pay off in actual competitions.

Some of those practices have been unorthodox, like volleyball and swimming teams training outdoors for indoor sports while gyms have been closed. Soccer is the other fall sport that hasn’t begun competition, except in northern Michigan, because of the perceived greater risk of transmitting the coronavirus in that sport.

“It’s hard to fully commit to it,” Pinckney senior soccer player Joe Czerwinski said. “I know some people on the team have jobs, so they haven’t quit them like they normally would, because they don’t know if we’re going to have a season. When we’re out here, the people who are out here are doing our hardest.”

On Monday, Pinckney’s soccer team held another practice on what should have been the eve of a home game against Charyl Stockwell. Instead, that became the fifth postponed game of the season, with two more in the crosshairs this week. The Pirates have 17 games on their schedule.

“Hopefully we get the go-ahead and can make some of them up,” Pinckney soccer coach Sean Grace said.

It’s been a particularly difficult fall for Pinckney senior Max Gonos.

Gonos is a two-sport athlete in the fall as the kicker on the football team and one of the top players on the soccer team.

He’s already been through the disappointment of having football season moved to the spring, a decision that was made before the fifth official practice of the season. Now he’s among the athletes in three other Michigan High School Athletic Association sports who are in limbo as they continue to practice with no certainty they will have a season.

“It’s been crazy going through it all, trying to stay positive through it all,” Gonos said. “Obviously, football is canceled. It’s just soccer now. Hopefully, we can play pretty soon.”

Howell’s volleyball program has been practicing with four nets set up on a soccer field at Challenger Elementary.

Like athletes across the state, Howell’s volleyball players have endured the emotional highs and lows that accompany every announcement by the MHSAA. There was hope when all fall sports were given the go-ahead to practice, but it’s been nothing but disappointment since then as the uncertainty has persisted three weeks into official practices.

“It’s getting really frustrating, because we’re told we’ll have an answer by this date, then it keeps on getting pushed back,” Howell senior Riley Perry said. “But our whole program has done really well with maintaining hope to have a season. We keep on coming out here and trying our best like every practice to try to have a season.”

Howell volleyball coach Jayne Williams has to stay on top of her players’ mood swings as they practice under the hot sun without a match on the immediate horizon.

She said: “We’ve had a lot of conversations about that and said, ‘You know what? This could be the last day, so come give everything you can today. If it is the last day, you’ve given your best. If you come in kind of moaning it could be the end, what are you going to settle for?’

“Does it get tough at times? Absolutely. We’ve had a few of our seniors kind of sad, ‘Well, this is my senior year.’ Yeah, but we’re still playing, we’re not totally shut down. We’re taking it from that angle. They’re doing a good job of it.”

After being separated from classmates and teammates for months during the spring, Howell senior Alaina Schrock is thankful even for the opportunity to practice.

“We love each other’s company,” she said. “We all love our teammates. We’re just happy to have any second with each other.”

There could be hope right around the corner for volleyball and swimming. The Detroit Free Press has reported that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer plans to open gyms and other indoor facilities as early as Wednesday.

Athletes around Michigan hope this isn’t another decision that is kicked further down the road. Cross country, golf and tennis are the only sports that have been competing.

“It’s definitely frustrating, especially when we keep getting dates, but we’re not getting decisions,” Howell senior volleyball player Brianna Eden said. “We’re outside all the time. We don’t know if we’re going to have a season. We don’t know if it’s going to be in the fall or the spring. We don’t really know. So, every day is a blessing at this point. We get to play; that’s all I’m here for.”

Contact Bill Khan at wkhan@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillKhan.