The COVID-19 adjusted business rate for Orange County dropped from Tuesday, Feb. 23, to 11.7, meaning outdoor sports like football and water polo can begin their seasons.
The case rate set by the California Department of Public Health had to be 14,000 or less per 100,000 residents within a state to play outdoor contact sports in those counties. Orange County’s season 1 outdoor sports for soccer and water polos for boys and girls can now begin practice.
Football teams can play their first matches as early as March 11th.
CIF rules regarding football require 14 days of practice before games can be played – three days of conditioning, 11 days with full pillows. Teams can begin the conditioning period on Tuesday afternoon. If they start the conditioning period on Tuesday (February) and practice the required fourteen days, football teams can play their first matches on 11 to 13 March. Football teams can also do an inter-team on March 6, which is a Saturday.
The regular season should end on April 17, which will be the sixth game of the season for teams playing first games during the period from March 11 to 13. The CIF Southern Division canceled play-off matches for football and other traditional autumn sports such as cross-country and water polo and girls volleyball which became season 1 sports this school year when the usual three sports seasons (autumn, winter and spring) were announced for two seasons (Season 1, Season 2).
A few football leagues that mostly include Orange County teams do have one or more non-OC teams. The Trinity League is one of them, with St. John Bosco of Bellflower in the six-team league with JSerra, Mater Dei, Orange Lutheran, Santa Margarita and Servite. The adjusted rate of Los Angeles County was 12.3, which gave the county’s soccer teams the same opportunities as the Orange County soccer teams.
According to Paul Caldera, the coordinator of the Orange County Football Official Association, it is probably not a problem to get enough officials and referees to play football matches.
“As for lower levels,” Caldera said, referring to junior varsity, freshman and other non-varsity games, “we will only know when the schools decide how many teams they will have. Many of them may decide to have only one level below freshness. But I’ve already told a few schools that I’m willing to think outside the box. ‘
What the masks need to play, the California Department of Public Health said last week: ‘Football, rugby and water polos are sports with a high contact that can probably be played unmasked, with a close, face-to-face contact which is longer than 15 minutes. . ”
More details to come.