Page 9 - Mid Valley Times 11-26-20 E-edition

Thursday, November 26, 2020
Fresno Pacific men's
basketball returns to
action in January
DHS names new water polo coach
Contributed
Fresno Pacific Univer- sity’s basketball teams will be returning to action in mid-January, after the Pacific West Conference executive board last week unanimously voted lto grant permission for the conference to announce return to competition dates and scheduling con- cepts for the upcoming semester.
Competition will re- sume as allowed by local and state guidelines, ac- cording to the conference.
The PacWest plans to restart conference com- petition after a 10-month hiatus during the week of Jan. 18 with the men’s and women’s basketball seasons tipping off among members.
The schedules for each of the PacWest sports will include in-pod games, di- viding the conference into three pods – Hawai’i, Northern California, and Southern California. Chaminade, Hawai`i Hilo and Hawai`i Pacific make up the Hawai`i pod. The Northern California pod will be composed of Fres- no Pacific, Academy of Art, Dominican and Holy Names. The Southern California pod is Azusa Pacific, Biola, Concordia and Point Loma.
“This is a big step forward for our confer- ence in our continuing efforts to safely return to competition during these challenging times,” Com- missioner Bob Hogue
said last week. “We’ve been working hard to create the right condi- tions for student-athletes to have meaningful sea- sons of competition in a way that minimizes risk and is in accordance with local, state and federal guidelines. We are look- ing forward to seeing student-athletes back to competing in the sports they love.”
The conference bas- ketball season will run for seven weeks from mid-January through the first week of March. The Sunbird men’s team is coached by former Immanuel High School coach C.J. Haydock, and features former Eagles stars Nate Kendricks and Darrin Person.
Fall sports soccer and volleyball will also com- pete in-pod during the spring semester; the con- ference soccer schedule is expected to run from the beginning of February thru early March, with the conference volleyball schedule immediately fol- lowing soccer, from mid- March to late April.
Specific schedules in all of these sports, as well as in the spring sport of baseball, which is set to begin in March, will be announced at a later date. Details for the spring championship sports of tennis and track and field, as well as details for the cross country season, also will be announced in the weeks to come.
By George M. Villagrana
Mid Valley Times
Mekayla Coughran is the new head coach of the Dinuba High boys’ water polo team.
Coughran coached a season of junior varsity water polo at El Capi- tan High School in Mer- ced where the team won league. Coughran was an assistant men’s swim coach for a year before being promoted to the head coaching position this past season. The sea- son was cut short due to COVID.
“Coaching at Merced I believe prepared me to take on this exciting en- deavor at Dinuba,” she stated.
Coughran has a con- nection to the school as she is engaged to Robert Martin, an employee at the school.
“I have actually heard about the position and considered applying for
several years, but the timing was off,” she said. “Now engaged to be mar- ried I knew I wanted to move this direction and coach.”
Coughran went to Fresno Pacific Universi- ty as a swimming recruit to add to their distance team. She majored in Contemporary Christian Ministry and is now an in- structional aid at Dinuba High School. She is also a Youth Ministry Intern at Kingsburg Covenant Church.
Coughran is a gradu- ate of Atwater High School where she played water polo all four years. She played three years at the varsity level letter and a club swimmer for two years.
Coughran has coached two years as a certified USA swim coach for a club team in Merced and is currently coaching with the Tule Nation Triton swim club in Kingsburg.
Photo Contributed
After years of contemplating the position, Dinuba High instructional Aid Mekayla Coughran will be taking over as the Emperors' new boys' water polo coach. She has previously coached at El Capitan High in Merced.
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Fresno State games cancelled due to COVID cases
MVT Staff Report
Last week the Moun- tain West Conference an- nounced the cancellation of Fresno State football’s Nov. 21 matchup with San Jose State after sev- eral Bulldog players re- portedly tested positive for COVID-19.
This week the confer- ence announced it would further cancel this week-
end’s scheduled game against San Diego Sate for the same reason, with no plan to reschedule the game. The game is being declared a no-contest.
“We are disappointed for our student-athletes, staff, and the entire Red Wave fan base that we cannot compete against San Diego State this week,” said Fresno State Director of Athletics Ter-
ry Tumey.
He added that a large
portion of the football program will continue forward with team ac- tivities, following all re- quired protocol and pre- cautionary measures, in preparation for the remainder of the 2020 schedule. Tumey said he is hopeful the team will play again on Dec. 5 in a scheduled matchup with
the University of Ne- vada.
The Fresno State Bulldogs were off to a 3-1 start and were on a three-game win streak prior to the cancella- tion of last week’s and this week’s games. The game against Nevada is scheduled to take place in Reno, Nevada. A start time has not yet been an- nounced.
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