High school notes: Sac-Joaquin Section eliminates playoffs, allows teams to set schedules

There will be no playoffs for any sports in the Sac-Joaquin Section during the 2020-21 school year, more fallout from the coronavirus pandemic that has prevented nearly all of California from competing in education-based athletics since March.

That was the main takeaway Wednesday when section commissioner Mike Garrison and assistant commissioner Will DeBoard met with media via Zoom, stressing that schools need as much scheduling flexibility as possible.

Playoff seasons can last for several weeks, but the California Interscholastic Federation’s 10 sections are running out of time. It adds to the urgency the section commissioners and the CIF headquarters in Sacramento have in advocating for more sports seasons such as football to be allowed in California’s red COVID-19 tier.

The current plan under the guidance of county and state health departments is football could only be played in orange, which is two levels from the most-restrictive purple that now blankets the majority of the state. The CIF talks regularly with the California Department of Public Health.

The Sac-Joaquin Section said its member leagues can create their own schedules for potential seasons, provided counties are within the allowable color tier. This and other changes, such as setting the time window to get any sports seasons in, were voted on and passed at the section Board of Managers meeting Tuesday.

“We’re encouraging our commissioners to work together to kind of align some things that they can,” Garrison said. “You might be able to play somebody outside your league for that period of time. … We’re recommending seasons anywhere between six to eight weeks or seven to 10 weeks. So however they divvy that up or they see the best fit for them. What you could see, is just strictly league competition and nothing else. I think that’s where the leagues might be going with the majority of that stuff.”

Some talking points:

Scheduling update

One of the changes the section made was lumping the start and end date for all sports, except football.

Every sport, once it moves into the appropriate color tier, can start on Feb. 1 with a last contest date of June 12.

The only sport that had an earlier start date of Jan. 25 was cross country. On Monday, the first high school sporting event sanctioned by the CIF in the Sacramento region in 10 months was held, a cross country meet in El Dorado County with four schools participating.

Other sports that could start competition on Feb. 1 while their county is in the purple tier include golf, swimming, diving, tennis, and track and field. Those that can start while in the red tier include baseball, field hockey, girls lacrosse and softball.

The only sport with an earlier last contest date of April 17 is football. The section set this date for health and safety reasons in regards to having a season end too close to summer camp. Sacramento State football opted out of a spring Big Sky schedule citing similar reasons and to prevent overworking student-athletes in a collision sport where recovery time is vital in an era of extra caution on the toll of bodies and brains.

Are club football players eligible for the prep season?

The simple answer is no — at least not at the same time.

In July, the CIF suspended Bylaws 600-605 (outside competition) in all sports for the 2020-21 school year, but last week the CIF removed the temporary waiver because the CDPH has guidelines on “cohorting” — students playing on different teams with different groups of people, thus the potential for COVID-19 transmission and spread.

The CDPH guidelines, in part, say “athletes and coaches should cohort by team, and refrain from participating with more than one team over the same season or time period.”

One local club team — Iron Sharpens Iron — features a handful of local prep players. Because of the bylaws, student-athletes will not be able to play club and high school football at the same time.

“The only time you violate Bylaw 600 is once you play in a high school game,” Garrison said. “So any student that has never played in the high school game if they work out or play with their club team, and things like that, it’s not a violation until you play with your high school team then you go play with the club team then it becomes an issue or a violation.”

This story was originally published January 27, 2021 at 1:54 PM.