Page 7 - Mid Valley Times 12-24-20 E-edition

Thursday, December 24, 2020
RC calls off football, basketball for 2020
Five of six traditional fall, winter sports will not compete in the 2020-2021 athletic calendar year
By Jon Earnest
Mid Valley Times
There will be no tradi- tional fall and winter sports, including mainstays football and basketball, played com- petitively at Reedley College during the 2020-2021 athletic year.
Five of the six sports — football, men's and women's basketball, women's soccer and women's volleyball are the sports affected by the de- cision. Jerry Buckley, Reedley College president, made the announcement on Dec. 16.
One sport — women's golf, which won the Northern Cali- fornia JC championship and placed second in state in 2019 — will compete this season in the Spring 1 category. The de- layed, abbreviated season will run from Jan. 18 to April 17, 2021.
“After multiple discus- sions with our administration, athletic staff, public health groups and the CCCAA, we have decided this is the best
path to take moving forward,” Buckley said in a Dec. 16 news release. “This was a very dif- ficult decision, but the health and safety of our student- athletes was a huge factor in moving in this direction.”
The five sports shelved for this athletic year have been placed in the Spring 1 cat- egory by the California Com- munity College Athletic Asso- ciation. It officially means the football program, which went 10-1 and captured the North- ern California Football As- sociation American Division championship in 2019, won't return to the field for games until Fall 2021.
Reedley College has also made the decision to approve the following sports for athlet- ic competition in the “Spring 2” category: Baseball, soft- ball, men’s golf, and men’s and women’s tennis. The sea- son for these sports runs from March 27 to June 23, accord- ing to the college.
“We look forward to see-
ing our spring sports teams compete in 2021,” said Pres- ident Buckley. “These stu- dent-athletes did not get to finish their seasons because
of the pandemic, so we are excited to see them back in action.”
All student-athletes will retain their year of eligibility
ABOVE: The Reedley College football team, which won the Northern California Football Association's American Division championship in 2019, will not have a season for 2019-2020.
LEFT: Reedley College's women's golf team, which won the North- ern California championship and placed second in state in 2019. will have a season in 2021, from Jan. 18 to Apriol 17.
Danny Jimenez / Photos Contributed
regardless of their teams’ sta- tus during the 2020-2021 aca- demic year and will continue to progress toward their de- gree requirements.
Sanger Cal Ripken
baseball delays its
registration to Feb.
FPU men's hoop falls to Fresno State
MVT Staff Report
Sanger Cal Ripken baseball announced last week that it's postpon- ing its registration for the 2021 season until February.
In the league's Face- book page, it announced that district officials no- tified the league that it would be unable to get any field use approval until Fresno County reaches the Orange Tier level (below widespread and substantial) when it comes to positive coro-
navirus cases.
"Some of the specific
guidelines we were told we would need to follow are limiting crowd size, face masks to be worn by players at all times, and while in the dugout players will need to so- cial distance," the post read.
League officials said they would continue to update the public as new information be- comes available. Follow the league on Facebook at Sanger Cal Ripken baseball.
Former Immanuel star Kendricks has 8 points
MVT Staff Report
The Fresno Pacific men's bas- ketball team couldn't overcome a frigid start in a crosstown exhi- bition matchup against the Fres- no State Bulldogs.
Plagued by ice-cold shooting that left them in a 35-14 hole at halftime, the Sunbirds battled back to make it somewhat com- petitive before falling 78-65 in a Dec. 19 contest at the Save Mart Center. There were no fans in at- tendance as part of Fresno State and California protocol.
“Their physicality got to us, and we had an all-time poor
shooting per-
formance in
the first half,"
said FPU
coach C.J.
Haydock. "We
could have
folded at half-
time, but we
found a way
to chip away.
That speaks
to who we
are, and we’re going to keep be- ing that.
"We’re masquerading as a Division I school, but we have stretches where I’m impressed with our guys’ toughness, togeth- erness and grit."
Fresno Pacific (0-2 in exhibi-
tions) missed its first five shots from the field and never found an offensive rebound against the Bulldogs. But the Sunbirds came alive with 51 second-half points, making the final score respect- able.
Junior wing player Nate Ken- dricks, an Immanuel High prod- uct, scored eight points on 2-of-4 field goals (including a three- pointer) and 3-of-5 from the foul line. He collected one rebound, a steal and dished off four as- sists. Sunbirds' senior Aamondae Coleman led alls scorers with 24 points.
Fresno Pacific now waits for the PacWest Conference to fi- nalize its season schedule in the coming weeks.
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