San Mateo County school districts forge own path to indoor sports

After months of trying to coordinate basketball and volleyball schedules and trying figure out where schools were in their return-to-play plans, it seems as if everyone agrees that it’s each district for itself.

“[Athletic directors] all met on Monday and every (high school) district is in a different place,” said Melissa Schmidt, Sequoia AD and girls’ soccer coach, and who has spearheaded the Sequoia Union High School District athletics plan.

“Constantly changing these PAL schedules just doesn’t make much sense. Everything was going to be so fluid, we said, ‘Let’s let schools make their own schedules.’”

Schmidt said the decision at that Monday meeting was to let each school district decide on how it wants its school to proceed. Schmidt said the SUHSD is preparing for a basketball season.

“San Mateo (Union High School District) is trying to figure out in they can do it at all. Sounds like Half Moon Bay is ready to roll. South San Francisco (Unified School District) wasn’t sure,” Schmidt said.

For the school districts, it comes down to the testing. While testing has not been required for many of the outdoor sports, some districts chose to do so anyway. There was a bit of a resentment early on when the San Mateo district schools said it was going to test all its girls’ tennis and golf, cross country and swimming athletes and would not play games or matches against schools that did not test. None of the other school districts that play in the PAL were testing at the time.

It was a lot easier when schools had to test athletes only once a week. The return of basketball and volleyball would mean tests prior to each game.

There are ways to keep the testing to a minimum, however, and that is to play games within the 48-hour window allotted by the testing procedures. In other words, teams could play games on back-to-back days and still be within the parameters of a single test.

Schmidt envisions a schedule in the Sequoia district of playing double round robin play against each team in the district, which in addition to Sequoia includes Carlmont, Menlo-Atherton and Woodside. That would give those schools a six-game district “league” schedule. Schmidt said coaches would then go about adding any non-league games they can find.

“I’m talking about 12 basketball games because of the testing schedule,” Schmidt said.

One recent development that can aid in scheduling non-league games is that schools can now schedule games against schools that are not in adjoining counties.

“[The state health department] pulled that county rule. You are now free to play in non-adjacent counties. That came down [Tuesday] night,” Schmidt said. “But I think we’re still going to try and stay local.”

But before games or matches can be scheduled, let alone played, the teams have to get back in the gym.

“First, we need to have practice. We haven’t had practice yet,” Schmidt said. “Right now, I’m just focused on getting these kids tested next week so we can have tryouts.”

***

While volleyball and basketball look to be slowly coming online in some districts, wrestling continues to be the odd man out, so to speak. Schmidt said there are still many reservations about getting back on the wrestling mat, simply because of the constant contact between wrestlers with nothing between then but two wrestling singlets.

“I think there are very real concerns around wrestling,” Schmidt said. “(The Sequoia) team just started [conditioning Tuesday] outdoors.”

The NCAA wrestling championships and the U.S. Olympic trials have both recently competed, however, and there hasn’t been any reports of a breakout.

***

The San Mateo County Gary Monisteri Men’s Golf Championship Tournament at Poplar Creek Golf Course was held the weekend of March 27 and 28, with Richard Yai winning in a two-man playoff.

Yai, a dentist from Dublin in the East Bay, bested Jerry Ledzinski of the Monterey Peninsula on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff. It was to be a three-man playoff, but the third had to leave before the tournament concluded.

Sixty-eight golfers teed off Saturday, with Yai taking the first-round lead after firing a 3-under 67 to take a two-shot lead over four others. Ledzinski was four shots back after a 71.

Day 2 saw Yai shoot a 73, while Ledzinski finished with a 69 to force the playoff. Both golfers parred the opening playoff hole, No. 18, sending them to the No. 1 hole. Yai birdied the hole to win the playoff and take the championship.