Merced County high school sports canceled, practices adjusted due to excessive heat
The extreme heat that has hit Merced County this week has forced high school athletic directors and coaches to be creative and flexible with handling outdoor practices and games.
Merced recorded an all-time record high of 115 degrees on Tuesday, which forced all outdoor games and activities to be canceled during the afternoon. Temperatures are expected to drop to 108 degrees on Thursday and 107 on Friday.
“This week is absolutely ridiculous,” said Golden Valley High School football coach Rick Martinez. “We had to make a few adjustments to our weekly schedule.”
Nobody wants to see the scene that played out on Tuesday in Loomis where a Del Oro football player collapsed twice while the team practiced in 115-degree heat. The player was eventually taken to a hospital and treated for heat stroke.
The governing body California Interscholastic Federation leaves it up to each school and district to make the call on whether or not to have sporting events in hot weather.
The Merced Union High School District has a policy that no outdoor practices are sporting events are permitted if temperatures reach 104 degrees or hotter.
Most athletic directors have rarely seen that policy come into play until this week.
Many football teams like Golden Valley, Buhach Colony, Atwater and Livingston have opted for early morning practices before school. Other teams like Stone Ridge Christian, Los Banos, Pacheco and Hilmar have opted to practice at night.
El Capitan has had to move practices off campus to Joe Herb Park so the team can practice at night.
Merced High football has gone early morning and late night, depending on the day.
Many junior varsity and freshmen football teams have been forced to practice inside gymnasiums to avoid the heat.
“We’ve been practicing in the morning and using the afternoons to watch film and prepare,” said Atwater football coach Seneca Ybarra. “It’s been an adjustment for the guys in regards to getting up in the morning but we’ve had good energy and good numbers.”
Merced High athletic director Paul Hogue says they’ve tried not to jump the gun on pushing back start times for football in recent weeks.
“With so many transportation issues that we have and other schools have we did not want to impose,” Hogue said.
This week Hogue and other athletic directors started making scheduling changes early with the expected heat wave.
“This week we were making changes as early as Sunday for games (Tuesday) and for the remainder of the week,” Hogue said.
Tuesday saw golf, water polo and tennis matches being postponed. Some tennis matches on Thursday have been bumped up to 9 a.m.
Merced High had to cancel it’s junior varsity football game at Monterey Trail on Friday because of the high temperatures expected. They tried to reschedule the game for Saturday but there aren’t officials available.
“All in all the heat issues have been hard to deal with, but not as bad as last year’s bad air days when we were canceling and rescheduling games at or near game time,” Hogue said.
Fortunately, for fall teams it’s early on in the season with plenty of time to reschedule games. Most varsity football games have had starting times pushed back to 8 p.m.
Football This Week
Friday
Merced at Monterey Trail
Golden Valley at Pitman
East Union at Atwater
Buhach Colony at Lincoln
Livingston at El Capitan
Pacheco at Tracy
Dos Palos at Pioneer Valley
Chowchilla at Parlier
Mariposa at Davis
Saturday
Hlimar at Palma
Woodland Christian at Stone Ridge Christian
This story was originally published September 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
