Schedules coming together for spring football

It’s only be a few days since the California Interscholastic Federation announced all sports will be pushed back until late December and early January, and a few of the local high schools already have their new football schedules worked out.

On Wednesday, Tokay High announced its football schedule, which is the same schedule it had planned for the fall, just starting on Jan. 8, 2021.

“All we did was confirm with everybody that our schedule is going to stick, so it was pretty easy,” said Michael Holst, Tokay’s Athletic Director. “I just assumed what we were doing with our league, and we confirmed that in our league meeting today.”

The only hiccup came when confirming a preseason home game against Concord, which is in the North Coast Section.

“Our sections started a week before theirs, and now it’s the same,” Holst said. “Luckily they had a bye week right in there, and they were able to move things around.”

Tokay’s preseason starts with a trip to Lathrop, followed by a home game against Bear Creek, a road game at Stagg, then two home games against Concord and Liberty Ranch. Following a bye, the league schedule will be at West, two home games against Lincoln and St. Mary’s, and two road games at Tracy and Lodi.

For the rest of the sports, it gets a little more difficult, with more games, as well as transportation and facility conflicts.

“I don’t think anybody knows how we’ll do it,” Holst said. “We may have to do Saturdays for some things, and we don’t know if we’ll have all the officials. I think our league commissioner (Steve Lopez) is going to throw out a couple of ideas and we’ll see if they stick.”

Liberty Ranch’s Anthony Linebaugh, the school’s Athletic Director and head football coach, said his football schedule is also coming together, with Sierra Valley Conference Commissioner John Williams meeting with the league members on Wednesday to hash things out.

“We’ll be meeting pretty frequently, with two meetings prior to the start of school,” Linebaugh said. “Our commissioner, we’re

really blessed to have John Williams. He’s already gone through every schedule, and we’ll be meeting about any challenges that come up.”

Galt and Liberty Ranch have suspended their on-campus team conditioning practices on the recommendation

of Sacramento County’s public health department.

“We were able to have three really good weeks of conditioning. Those safety protocols were not easy, but they really did a good job,” Linebaugh said. “Talking with Courtney Carillo over at Galt, she was really pleased with her staff as well.”

At Lodi, Athletic Director Robert

Winterhalter said he would reach out this week to the Flames’ preseason football opponents to confirm games are still on for the corresponding weeks, but he doesn’t anticipate any changes.

“Most of us are on the same page,” he said. “We have some questions we need to ask our coaches. But there’s lots of time to figure that stuff out.”