CIF Cancels Playoffs for Fall Sports

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CIF’s released statement on the update for Fall Sports (1st page) Photo Courtesy of cifss (Instagram)

Gary Garcia, Sports Editor
January 19, 2021

CIF has updated their plans for the 2020-2021 sports seasons in a recent statement by the CIF’s board of commissioners. With COVID cases rising since their last update on December 12, 2020, CIF announces that they are cancelling the Southern Section Fall Sports Championships. They continue to explain that there has not been enough progress in COVID cases for Football, Girls Volleyball, and Boys/ Girls Water Polo to conduct viable league play because there will not be enough time to do so. Having no league play makes it impossible to for CIF to conduct any championships for these sports.

Graphic showing the amount of cases in California and which sports are allowed to play in each condition. (Instaram: cifss)

CIF commissioner, Rob Wigod states, “We are not cancelling the entire seasons for our Fall Sports, we are cancelling the portion of the Fall Sports that we have direct control over, Southern Section Championships.” With no championships taking place, there is extra time remaining for schools to schedule contests. Each sport has certain end dates for their seasons, the sports and their designated end dates are as follows:

  • Boys/Girls Cross-Country – Saturday, March 27, 2021
  • 8-man Football – Saturday, April 3, 2021
  • 11-man Football – Saturday, April  17, 2021
  • Girls Volleyball – Saturday, March 20, 2021
  • Boys/Girls Water Polo – Saturday, March 20, 2021

Given the following end dates of Boys/Girls Cross-Country, they can begin competing as soon as next week. Although Cross-Country can begin competing next week, the certainty of conducting a championship is still unclear. The CIF’s thought of possibly holding the Championship in one location for all 7 counties within the Southern-Section is “unrealistic due to the provided stay at home order.”

The status for Spring Sports remain in place with the original schedule that was first released in July, 2o2o. If cases of COVID were to stay the same or increase the same plan instated for Fall sports would simply carry on to Spring Sports. CIF states, “At some point, probably in early or mid-April, we would determine if we are able to conduct Southern Section Championships in our Spring Sports and would make the appropriate announcement regarding the status of those championships at that time.”