The California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body for high school sports, is pushing the fall sports season to 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it announced Monday.
Should conditions come 2021 allow for team activities, all sports will be consolidated into two seasons – “fall” or “spring.” The revised schedule moves gives state championships dates for all sports, but the state’s 10 sections will each decide when their seasons start – likely in December or January fall sports.
Basketball (usually a winter sport), for example, will be moved to the spring with regional or state playoffs ending June 19. Earlier this month, the governing body’s Southern Section was reported to be considering holding all three sports seasons in an overlapping manner in the spring semester.
Boys’ and girls’ water polo will be combined into one season with the final day for regional and state championships being March 20; swimming & diving is set to end June 5. Under normal circumstances, boys’ water polo is a fall sport, girls’ is a winter sport, and coed swimming & diving is a spring sport. Additionally, the CIF will allow student-athletes to compete for their club teams simultaneously with their high school teams, the LA Times’ Eric Sondheimer reported.
The new schedule is as follows:
CIF State dates pic.twitter.com/AFYIuntY18
— Connor Morrissette (@C_Morrissette) July 20, 2020
What’s going to be really interesting is how many water polo kids just don’t even bother with high school season. CIF is allowing kids to compete with their high school and club at the same time this year. I’m not sure what the reasoning would be for this, but some might just not even do high school since that’s an option.
As for swimming, this is best case scenario in my opinion! The only difference is the season getting pushed back a couple of weeks, but it’s still 3 months long. It’s nice that they didn’t overlap wp with swim too. With boys water polo (and girls wp but that’s typical) being right before swim season, those water polo/swimmers… Read more »
Last date for Swimming and Diving State or Section Championships is June 5. US Team Trials begin June 13th.
Disappointing, but not surprising. At least the JOs won’t conflict with the HS water polo season. That is if there is JOs. . . .