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| Ryan Lancaster, senior OF/LHP 5'8", 140 lbs. Also plays basketball. (Photos by Ed Piper) |
Gary Frank, La Jolla High's baseball coach, says he has seven players who will be faced with choosing to play in his program or another sport in Spring 2021 due to CIF's grouping of baseball with a zillion other sports in this COVID-altered period.
He named three varsity players: Luke Brunette, Ryan Lancaster, and Cole Duffy; and four on JV: Binks Deatherage, Charlie Long, Spence Carswell, and Angel Reynosa.
The forced choice by these multi-sport student-athletes in his program of either playing baseball in the recently-announced "Spring Season" (scheduled March-May 2021), or another sport they participate in, is the result of all these sports being grouped together.
In response to the COVID situation, with school campuses closing March 16 for the remainder of the Spring 2020 semester, now announced closed for the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester as well, CIF telescoped the three traditional sports seasons into two temporary "seasons".
Under normal conditions, Fall, Winter, and Spring would see traditional calendars of competition in the various (and numerous) high school sports.
The temporary, crisis-response seasons announced by CIF for the 2020-2021 school year only, are "Fall", playing from January-March 2021, and "Spring", scheduled for games from March-May 2021.
Baseball is included in the latter.
"CIF has made it very clear that playing a full football season is their top priority (they added zero teams to the football field in the fall, but added 8 additional teams in the spring--when it was already more crowded)..." Frank texted to a reporter.
In addition, the 17-year LJHS head coach opined, "I believe, if things get pushed back more, they will play football in the spring and just cancel spring sports for the 2nd straight year."
Frank, when asked further, explained, "My hope is that all sports can play their seasons. And I know that CIF has an impossible job and a lot of factors I probably don't know about to consider, but from the outside, it just seems like a strange balance of seasons."
Frank, a former Viking All-CIF second baseman and professional minor league player hitting from the left side, expressed his extreme disappointment in the spring when his team's season was, first, suspended, then permanently cancelled as the coronavirus situation deepened.
At this point, as the number of virus infection cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have spiked after stay-at-home measures were lessened, no one knows if the tentatively-scheduled sports seasons will even happen beginning in January 2021.
The forced choice by these multi-sport student-athletes in his program of either playing baseball in the recently-announced "Spring Season" (scheduled March-May 2021), or another sport they participate in, is the result of all these sports being grouped together.
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| Luke Brunette, senior, 1B/LHP 5'9", 145 pounds. Also plays basketball. |
In response to the COVID situation, with school campuses closing March 16 for the remainder of the Spring 2020 semester, now announced closed for the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester as well, CIF telescoped the three traditional sports seasons into two temporary "seasons".
Under normal conditions, Fall, Winter, and Spring would see traditional calendars of competition in the various (and numerous) high school sports.
The temporary, crisis-response seasons announced by CIF for the 2020-2021 school year only, are "Fall", playing from January-March 2021, and "Spring", scheduled for games from March-May 2021.
Baseball is included in the latter.
 |
| Cole Duffy, junior, catcher 6'0", 165 lbs. Also plays basketball. (Pictured July 2019, American Legion playoffs.) |
"CIF has made it very clear that playing a full football season is their top priority (they added zero teams to the football field in the fall, but added 8 additional teams in the spring--when it was already more crowded)..." Frank texted to a reporter.
In addition, the 17-year LJHS head coach opined, "I believe, if things get pushed back more, they will play football in the spring and just cancel spring sports for the 2nd straight year."
Frank, when asked further, explained, "My hope is that all sports can play their seasons. And I know that CIF has an impossible job and a lot of factors I probably don't know about to consider, but from the outside, it just seems like a strange balance of seasons."
Frank, a former Viking All-CIF second baseman and professional minor league player hitting from the left side, expressed his extreme disappointment in the spring when his team's season was, first, suspended, then permanently cancelled as the coronavirus situation deepened.
At this point, as the number of virus infection cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have spiked after stay-at-home measures were lessened, no one knows if the tentatively-scheduled sports seasons will even happen beginning in January 2021.
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| Binks Deatherage, Viking wrestler, at the Vista Freshman Bash Dec. 21, 2019. Binks is now a sophomore. |
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