CIF sports: Playing days

By Ed Piper

Have you ever wondered why La Jolla's field hockey team plays league games on Mondays and Thursdays, and the boys water polo team plays league matches on Tuesdays and Thursdays?

Well, so have I. And the explanation is all there on the CIF San Diego Section website (cifsds.org), which I was looking at and where I found a file titled "Assigned Playing Days".

An advisory committee of athletic directors and other administrators meets for each sport, and one of the things they hash out is what days games will take place on.

I'm sure part of the goal is to distribute contests for their student-athletes on different days of the week, because an administrator is assigned to be present at each game to be available and to trouble-shoot anything that needs to be taken care of.

So, in the Western League for the 2017-18 school year, the Vikings' girls volleyball team plays league matches on Wednesdays and Fridays. That was set up in advance, and is the same day format as was in place for the 2016-17 school year.

Another element that comes into play is the availability of game officials. So that all leagues' matches aren't held on the same day, thus depleting the supply of referees and making it impossible to cover all games across CIF, the Eastern League is holding its girls volleyball matches this year on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Central League is holding its matches the same days as the Western, on Wednesdays and Fridays.

While Paul Baranowski's boys basketball team and Darice Carnaje's girls basketball team will again play their league games on Tuesdays and Fridays next January and February, schools in the Coastal Conference have changed both sports to a Wednesday/Friday format, previously having league games on Tuesdays and Fridays.