Some high school football game times will change due to weekend heat
This week’s high school football schedules have had to undergo a few changes.
Because of the record temperatures anticipated to hit the area over the holiday weekend, coaches and athletic directors have scrambled to adjust game times to help keep student athletes safe. Varsity games throughout the Sac-Joaquin Section have a universal scheduled start time on Friday nights, 7 p.m., but this week and possibly in following weeks, things are different.
Escalon, which hosts Windsor on Friday, moved both JV and varsity games to 5:30 and 7:30 p.m., respectively. Turlock High moved its junior varsity game to 6 and varsity from 7 to 8 p.m. The Bulldogs host Central-Fresno on Friday.
Hughson also had its game time moved from 7 to 8 p.m. Coach Shaun King says they were contacted by Argonaut around 12:30 p.m. Thursday, saying the game time would be changed. Junior varsity is scheduled to start at 6:15 p.m.
An 8 p.m. start time gives teams with turf fields more time for temperatures to cool down as the synthetic surface gets significantly hotter than regular grass. Turlock and Argonaut are two schools hosting games on synthetic turf this week.
“It definitely is different, especially during summer,” said King. “We did a lot of seven-on-sevens at schools that have turf and you can definitely tell the difference.”
Riverbank visits Denair on Friday and varsity game time has been changed from 7 to 8:15 p.m.
Moving game times has become the new norm for schools in Northern California as the Sacramento Area has dealt with anticipated heat issues as well.
Some schools are making efforts to beat the heat. At Patterson, though game time against Pitman hasn’t been changed as of yet; the plan is to give players extra water breaks throughout the game with official timeouts.
Ripon Christian plans for additional heat when making its nonleague schedule. Each of its first three varsity games are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Varsity league contests kick off at 7:15 p.m.
