High school sports in Merced County, state on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic
Merced County’s high school sports season, just like the rest of the state, will be delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Local athletics officials, however, say they aren’t surprised, given Friday’s announcement by Gov. Gavin Newsom that counties on the state’s watch list are ordered not to have in-person classes.
“We knew it was coming,” said Merced High athletic director Paul Hogue. “We’ve been hearing that and feeling that all along.”
The California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body of the high school athletics in the state, made the announcement about the season Monday morning.
The 10 sections, which oversee the schools in their respective areas, will announce their own sports calendar. The first games in the Sac-Joaquin Section are scheduled for Dec. 28 for cross country and boys and girls water polo.
“Starting in August is unrealistic,” said Sac-Joaquin Section assistant commissioner Will DeBoard. “We’re probably in the worst shape now than we’ve ever been as far as the virus. There’s no guarantees that we’ll be good to go in January, but moving the calendar back gives us the best chance to have some-what of a normal season.”
The Sac-Joaquin Section announced its sports calendar on Monday with the fall, winter, spring sports season being condensed into two seasons with fall sports beginning competitions in January and the winter and spring sports being combined into one season beginning with games starting in March.
By condensing to two seasons each sport is scheduled to complete close to a normal season, including football, which will have 10 regular season games and section playoffs.
“We definitely tried and came close to every season being close to a regular season as possible,” DeBoard said. “Football will be the same with 11 weeks to play 10 games.”
Football practices are scheduled to start Dec. 7 with the first game scheduled for Jan. 8. The section playoffs will be eight-team brackets that will last three weeks with the section championship games scheduled for April 9-10. There will be one week for state or regional games to be played on April 17.
The section may consider adding more divisions to allow more playoff teams, according to DeBoard.
“Once the gates open up we want to hit the ground running like we haven’t missed anything,” said Golden Valley football coach Rick Martinez. “We’re disappointed the season is on hold, but the alternative was the kids didn’t get to play any kind of season.”
The football season was originally scheduled to start with games Aug. 21.
Merced County high school teams were able to hold limited workouts with strict COVID-19 restrictions in June for a few weeks before they were stopped by the Merced County Public Health Department due to spiking coronavirus cases in the county.
“It’s disappointing,” Hogue said. “I think the three weeks we were able to condition was the best three weeks for the kids socially, emotionally and physically they needed it.”
Hilmar football coach Frank Marques was excited to hear his players will get to play, even if they have to wait.
“It doesn’t matter to me that we have to wait, we’ll adjust to the timeline,” Marques said. “The good thing about starting in December and January is we don’t have to practice in the heat.”
Winter sports like soccer and basketball are scheduled to start practices on Feb. 22 and begin games March 1. Both sports will have their full 28 contacts with other teams.
Spring sports like baseball and softball will start practice on March 15 will the first competitions beginning on March 22.
“It’s going to be tough for the multiple-sport athlete,” DeBoard said. “It’s almost impossible to play three sports and it’s tough to play two sports if you play football.”
With the modified sports calendar, the CIF also announced it’s waving bylaws that prevent athletes from playing on their high school teams and travel teams at the same time.
If a football team makes a long run in the playoffs, the season won’t end until mid April.
“I’m just happy about the possibility of playing football,” Marques said. “For a while I was concerned there wasn’t going to be a season.”
This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 10:39 AM.
