Wigod encouraged by start of cross country; girls beach volleyball nears final approval

Foothill and Beckman cross country teams opened their seasons Saturday with a meet at Beckman without spectators. (Photo courtesy Beckman athletics)

CIF Southern Section Commissioner Rob Wigod provided a brief update at the end of Tuesday’s virtual section council meeting and said officials were encouraged that girls and boys cross country competition was able to start last week.

While Orange County remains in the most restrictive purple tier, cross country is allowed by California Department of Public Health guidelines and when the Southern California stay at home order was lifted, it was given the OK to start, pending approval by local health officials. More meets are scheduled this weekend.

In addition, Wigod noted that coronavirus case numbers and hospitalizations have been trending downward recently. There were 768 new cases and 53 deaths reported Tuesday in Orange County by the Orange County Health Care Agency.

The Foothill vs. Beckman cross country meet on Saturday was among the first contests held in Southern California and Wigod said he was pleased to see runners throughout the section competing.

“We are encouraged with what cross country is now doing,” Wigod said. “Hopefully the numbers that will be coming out again today will continue in the downward trend. We’ve seen some real improvement over the last couple of weeks and obviously we’re continuing to have those conversations at the state level with the governor’s office and the California Department of Public Health to keep working on how we can get return to play in a healthy and safe way.”

Wigod noted that there are four spring sports in the purple tier: golf, tennis, track and field and swimming. All of those sports are scheduled to begin in March.

“They should all be able to start on time, our baseball and softball and girls lacrosse are in the red tier and that’s about six weeks from now so if these numbers keep going down, we might hopefully be able to get to those sports on time,” he said. “So hopefully, there are some brighter days coming to us and we just need to stay focused on that.

“And we really need to stay the course. We’ve had those schedules in place, they are prepared for full seasons, they are prepared to have the experiences that unfortunately they didn’t get last spring, so I just hope you continue to stay the course that we’ve been on for several months now because as things hopefully keep improving we will see that benefit us going forward.”

Wigod did not talk about the chances of football starting up. Counties would need to be in the orange tier, which is two tiers below purple, for it to start. It’s not known whether officials with the California Department of Public Health are willing to change the tiers that sports are currently in.

Coaches, athletes and parents involved in the LetThemPlay movement have continued to send messsages to state officials on social media urging them to allow the other sports to begin by either adjusting or dropping the tier system.

In an interview with OC Sports Zone in January, Wigod said that  he hoped football teams could begin practice this month and start games in the first week of March with a season possibly running until April 17 with no post-season competition. CIF officials may be open to extending the season to the end of April, he added.

CIF officials cancelled championship events for football, boys and girls water polo, girls volleyball and boys and girls cross country but are hoping that regular season competition can be held.

In other action:

–—Girls beach volleyball is a step closer to becoming a CIF Southern Section sport after the group’s council approved the state proposed measure by a vote of 83-7.

The action now moves on to the CIF state executive committee for a final vote on Friday, according to Thom Simmons, assistant commissioner of the CIF-SS. If approved, the sport would take place in the 2021-22 school year.

It depends on how many schools play if post-season competition would be held.

“The Southern Section has a section only bylaw that requires 20 percent of the membership to participate in a sport in order to have championships in said sport,” Simmons said.

–—The council by a 89-0 vote with one abstention approved a plan to increase the maximum allowable contests for baseball and softball to 28 games per season which is in line with schedules for basketball, soccer and water polo.

Tournaments will now count as one game, officials said.

The measure will also move on to the state meeting Friday for final approval, Simmons said.

–Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com