If a CIF baseball or softball game is called because of rain the game is a shortened official game if four innings have been completed or if the home team is ahead after 3 1/2 innings have been played but is replayed from the beginning, or outright cancelled if a makeup game is not possible, if the minimum number of innings have not been completed. The CIF has no protocol for football games shortened due to unsafe weather conditions, which was the case for many games played October 12.
Rain in the absence of lightning will not stop a football game, but a thunderstorm creates a safety hazard. Some CIF contests October 12 were completed either because of a starting time early enough to end the game before the thunderstorm that
night or because the storm did not reach that part of the county (for example, San Pasqual’s game at Valley Center), but most of the games were shortened.
“Probably 90 percent of them were stopped,” said CIF assistant commissioner John Labeta.
The conferences and leagues rather than the CIF itself made the decisions to reschedule games, call the game as a shortened official game, or declare the game to be no contest. “CIF doesn’t direct conference or league teams,” Labeta said.
If rain postpones a baseball or softball game or a golf or tennis match a contest can often be played on a rescheduled date with short notice. “It’s not quite as detailed as a football game is, especially the next day,” Labeta said.
Rescheduling a football game for the following day might not allow for proper officiating.
“A lot of those officials work Pop Warner or junior college,” Labeta said. “When your games are played at 8:30 or 9 o’clock at night there’s no guarantee you can get officials.”
Football games also require medical personnel, trainers, and security personnel. “It’s probably the toughest sport to reschedule in a short period of time,” Labeta said.
Some of the football players may be taking college admission tests on a given Saturday or may be on college recruiting trips the day after a rescheduled game. The availability of coaches is also an issue for a football game rescheduled or continued on short notice, and school buses to transport the players must also be available.
The Metro Conference decision to continue the called games the following day had less of an impact on coordinating bus transportation, as that conference has only one school district (plus one private school). The Grossmont Conference consists of one school district. The North County Conference has ten different school districts. “It’s not quite as simple,” Labeta said.
Some schools also opted to complete their games the following Monday.
For many teams the shortened games will not be rescheduled or continued, so a decision must be made whether to call the game a shortened official game or a no contest.
“Teams can decide to shorten their games,” Labeta said.
“Some of the teams did elect to do that and call it a contest at halftime and knew they weren’t going to get on the field,” Labeta said. “Those games were declared games.”
Most of the games called before halftime, especially the close matches, were declared no contest. Labeta attended the game between Carlsbad and El Camino which had a 14-13 score when the storm postponed the game shortly before halftime. The fans as well as the teams were sheltered in a gymnasium for about an hour and a half before the game was declared no contest.
“A lot of schools made very intelligent decisions to put those fans into gymnasiums,” Labeta said.
The San Diego State University football game was delayed due to the thunderstorm, but the seats at SDCCU Stadium are plastic and many of them are covered so the risk of being struck by lightning is considerably less than at high school games where fans sit in
uncovered metal bleachers. SDCCU Stadium also does not have a light curfew, so the game resumed after a delay of more than an hour and was completed.
Curfews made completion of high school games less feasible. “Schools have to have their lights out by 11 o’clock in some areas,” Labeta said.
