CIF puts high school sports on hold at least another month due to COVID surge
High school sports – both practice and competition – won’t start until January at the earliest, the California Interscholastic Sports Federation wrote in a statement late Tuesday afternoon.
The rise in positive coronavirus cases throughout the state has forced the California Department of Public Health to put off any guidance on youth sports until next month.
Until those guidelines are released, all sports are on hold.
The impacted sports in the Sac-Joaquin Section in Season I, or the winter sports, are football, boys and girls volleyball, boys and girls soccer, boys and girls water polo and boys and girls cross country.
Practice in some of those sports were scheduled to start as early as next week.
The CIF also announced the cancellations of all regional and state championship events in those sports to allow athletes a longer season, which would have been cut short for those not making postseason.
Will DeBoard, assistant commissioner for the Sac-Joaquin Section, which governs high school sports in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, said the delay could also impact the makeup of its organization’s playoff structure, meaning few rounds.
He also said while most sports can begin play after just one practice, there’s a minimum number of practices before football games resume. That could lead to a season starting in late January.
And, this is all predicated on how quickly counties can get a control of the pandemic.
“The CIF is confident this decision is a necessary and reasonable action for our member schools, student-athletes, and school communities in light of the current statewide crisis,” the CIF said in a statement. “This revision to the CIF State 2020-21 Season 1 Sports calendar offers our Sections and Leagues the flexibility and needed time to plan for the return to practice and competition once updated guidance is provided by the CDPH.”
Additionally, boys volleyball is also moving to the spring season.
Bee Boys Basketball Player of the Year signs with D1 school: Austin Patterson, the 2019-20 Bee’s Boys Basketball Player of the Year after leading Sonora to back-to-back Div. IV section titles, committed to Wofford University in Spartanburg, South Carolina last week.
Patterson, who was doing a post-grad year at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire, will enroll at Wofford next week and become immediately eligible.
Patterson averaged 23.4 points per game, 6.5 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 2.7 steals, and shot 55% from the field as a senior at Sonora.
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 5:51 PM.
