CIF cancels spring championships

Federation decision includes section, regional and state events

There’s no getting this season back.

The California Interscholastic Federation on Friday released a statement formally canceling all spring section, regional and state championships in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Based on the recent statements issued by Governor (Gavin) Newsom and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, regarding schools turning to distance learning for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year, the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) does not see an avenue for the spring sports season to continue. As such, in consultation today with the 10 Section Commissioners, the decision has been made to cancel spring Section, Regional, and State Championship events,” CIF Executive Director Ron Nocetti wrote in the release. “We understand this is disappointing for everyone involved in education-based athletics and empathize with our student-athletes and all who are impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. As always, our top priority is everyone’s ongoing health and safety during this challenging time, and we all look forward to the day when education-based athletics resumes.”

The decision by the state’s governing body for high school athletics comes a day after Newsom reinforced comments on continued school campus closures from the day prior.

“Kids are not going back to their classrooms, I can’t be more clear about this,” Newsom said during a Thursday press conference.

The Eureka City School Board on Thursday voted unanimously to honor the governor’s recommendation as well as a similar recommendation released Thursday

by the Humboldt County Office of Education and cancel inclass instruction for the remainder of term, becoming the first district in the county to do so.

If there’s no class on campus, there are no games on the field and so the district’s decision by default removes any possibility Eureka High will compete in any athletic events for the remainder of the year.

And other districts have followed suit.

On Friday the Northern Humboldt Union High School District, which encompasses both McKinleyville High and Arcata High, officially canceled in-class instruction for the remainder of the school year.

McKinleyville baseball and softball each claimed H-DNL Big 5 Conference titles last season. Panthers softball also won a North Coast Section Division 4 title, as did Arcata’s baseball team.

And now they are all officially done.

The school boards which oversee Fortuna and Ferndale High will meet Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, to discuss campus closures through the end of term.

St. Bernard’s Academy’s president and principal Paul Shanahan confirmed to the Times-Standard on Thursday that the private institution would follow the recommendations of state and lo

cal officials keep its campus closed to students for as long as those recommendations last — and based off the governor’s comments on Thursday, those recommendations

will not change.

The H-DNL will not need to formally cancel all spring sports this season. The league is inexorably connected to the school, so no class means no games.

“With the governor’s announcement and the recent action by HCOE and ECS to keep their students

on “distance learning” for the remainder of the school year, I anticipate other districts will be reaching similar conclusions and effectively ending local high sports for this spring season,” H-DNL commissioner Jack Lakin said in an e-mail on Friday.