The Central Coast Section on Thursday officially pushed the weekend’s postseason events.
Because of poor air quality in the Bay Area stemming from the ongoing Camp Fire just east of Chico, all of Friday’s football games will take place on Saturday at five sites in the southern portion of the CCS.
The CCS Cross Country Championships, too, were pushed back a day and moved to a different location. The section’s top runners will meet at Toro Park in Salinas on Sunday at 10 a.m.
Watsonville High will serve as one of the five locations set up for football triple-headers on Saturday.
The Aptos Mariners’ CCS Open Division III quarterfinal game against Terra Nova will headline the action at Emmett M. Geiser Field at 7 p.m.
Santa Clara will play Overfelt in the first game of the day at 1 p.m., and Mountain View-Burlingame will follow at 4 p.m.
Alisal, Alvarez, Pacific Grove and Salinas will also host CCS football action.
In an email obtained by the Pajaronian, section commissioner Duane Morgan informed the schools participating in upcoming CCS events on Wednesday that he appreciated the cooperation by all.
“It is the expectation that this cooperation will continue and please do not allow any type of gamesmanship to interfere with this laid out plan,” Morgan wrote. “People wanting to change this or that, thinking that one team is getting an advantage over another team will not be entertained — we are way beyond that point.”
The decision comes two days after the 10 section commissioners of the California Interscholastic Federation voted to push the football regional and state playoffs by a week to accommodate teams dealing with the impact of the state’s most destructive fire.
The NorCal Championships are now set for Dec. 7-8, while the CIF Championships at Cerritos College will take place the following weekend.
Only five of 20 scheduled CCS football games were played last weekend, as smoke filled the air throughout the Bay Area.
Aptos was originally scheduled to play Terra Nova on Nov. 9, but the game was pushed to Nov. 10. It was pushed thrice more, from Nov. 10 to Monday, Monday to Friday and, finally, to Saturday.
The cross country meet was also pushed back a week from its original date, Nov. 10.
