Donna Hagans

California will allow indoor high school sports to resume, what this means for VCS is still to be determined

Today’s announcement is excellent news for high school sports. At this time we do not yet have the official word from the Governor’s office or the requirements behind this new decision from the California Department of Public Health, but it is sure to come out soon. The Sierra Delta League will meet in the coming days to discuss what, if any changes will occur for the 2020-2021 school year.

At this time, VCHS spring sports are in full swing and preparing for our first contests beginning as soon as March 16th for the Falcon Swim team vs. Will C. Wood high school at 4pm. The Falcon Baseball and Softball teams kick off their season Friday, March 26th vs. Leroy Greene Academy at 4pm, with Track & Field and Golf preparing for April competitions. Our VCMS Cross Country team will open their NSAL middle school season next week.

There are still many unknowns with today’s announcement, but we can all agree that this is exciting news for the future of our athletic programs and our dedicated student-athletes. As more information is released, the VCS Athletics will keep the community up-to-date on what these decisions mean for the VCS Falcons at all levels.

Indoor high school sports has scored a collective victory for a return to action in California, thanks to advocacy groups pushing for fairness and to study submitted data that prep sports are not superspreaders of COVID-19 – and the power of legal muscle.

Click here to read the Sacramento Bee article by Cameron Salerno and Joe Davidson, March 4, 2021

Thank You Booster Club!

The VCS Booster Club does several projects each year to benefit and support the success of the athletic programs at Vacaville Christian. Without their hardworking, dedicated members serving the Athletics Department, many tasks would remain undone and many events would be short-handed. With the challenges of covid concerns impacting their on-campus presence, and up until now, no actual sporting events to support through concession sells, gate volunteers, security staff at football games, and the like, the Booster Club found another way to support not only the athletics programming, but the school as a whole. They say it’s the little things in life that bring joy and happiness, well dear Booster Club, VCS would like to say THANK YOU for the new ice machine in the gym!

Ice machine? How will that purchase help our programs? For starters your ice cold drinks will be appreciated much more in those warmer months, but the daily need by the physical education and athletics programs in injury care and proper hydration of our student-athletes is essential to our success.

Thank you Booster Club!

From all of us at VCS
CDPH logo

UPDATE: Outdoor and Indoor Youth and Recreational Adult Sports

Summary

COVID-19 continues to pose a severe risk to communities and requires all people in California to follow recommended precautions. This guidance provides direction on outdoor and indoor youth and recreational adult sports activities to support a safe environment for these sports. The guidance applies to all organized youth sports and recreation— including school- and  community-sponsored programs, and privately-organized clubs and leagues — and adult recreational sports (hereafter youth and adult sports). This guidance does not apply to collegiate or professional sports. Additionally, this guidance does not apply to community events, such as marathons, half-marathons, and endurance races. 

Inter-team competitions (i.e., between two teams) resumed in California beginning January 25, 2021. The guidelines outlined in this document shall take effect on February 26, 2021.

The status of return-to-competition is subject to change at any time given the level of COVID-19 transmission in California.

Click here to review the full CDPH update.

CIF Update Regarding Bylaws 600-605 and Cohorting

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. — The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) sent an inquiry to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) regarding the Cohorting Section in their updated youth sports guidance document released on December 14, 2020, and we have confirmed that their specific language regarding cohorting and multi-team participation is not a mandate, but a recommendation. Therefore, effective immediately, the CIF is reinstating its waiver of Bylaws 600-605. The only exception is the sport of football. In consultation with the CIF Sports Medicine Advisory Committee and given the California law (California Education Code 35179.5) regarding full-contact practice limitations and other safety regulations resulting from Assembly Bill 2127 (Cooley), Assembly Bill 1 (Cooper), and CIF Bylaws, students will not be allowed to participate on a high school football team and a club football team at the same time. No student is in violation of this Bylaw until they participate in a high school football game and subsequently participate in a club football game. 

Question: If a student has already participated on a football team outside the CIF, does this impact their high school eligibility? 

Answer: No. As of today, there have been no CIF football games so no student has lost eligibility with respect to this Bylaw. 

Sierra Delta League logo

Falcon Athletes now have something to count on

Thursday, January 28, 2021 | Donna Hagans, Director of Athletics

On Tuesday, January 26, 2021 the Sac-Joaquin Section approved a new 2020-2021 Sports Calendar, replacing the calendar outlined in the fall with a season 1 and a season 2. The new sports calendar has finally offered each individual league the opportunity to design their sports offerings based on what is best for those schools involved.

What does this mean for our league, the Sierra Delta League?

On Tuesday evening, following the sections Board of Directors approval of the new sports calendar, the SDL determined that we will only establish league schedules for the spring sports. All other sports are in limited period.

VCS SPRING SPORTS: Baseball, Softball, Golf, Swimming, Track & Field, Men’s Volleyball

Spring sports calendars are being established by the SDL Commissioner and are expected to be finalized by early next week. All spring sports will being in early March, ending in mid-May.

More to come once our spring schedules are ready!

Are you a student-athlete interested in playing for a spring team?

Next steps:

1) Complete your Final Forms registration and submit the required participation documents.

2) Click here to complete a quick poll on your spring sport interest. (In compliance with the CDPH, student-athletes must choose sports team, there is to be no dual sports participation during the spring season dates)

CDPH logo

VCS Athletics and the lifting of the state’s regional stay-at-home order for all regions

SACRAMENTO – Officials with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) today ended the Regional Stay at Home Order, lifting the order for all regions statewide, including the three regions that had still been under the order – San Joaquin Valley, Bay Area and Southern California. Four-week ICU capacity projections for these three regions are above 15%, the threshold that allows regions to exit the order. The Sacramento Region exited the order on January 12 and the Northern California region never entered the order.

This action allows all counties statewide to return to the rules and framework of the Blueprint for a Safer Economy and color-coded tiers that indicate which activities and businesses are open based on local case rates and test positivity. The majority of the counties are in the strictest, or purple tier. Tier updates are provided weekly on Tuesdays. Individual counties could choose to impose stricter rules.

Read the full announce by clicking here.

What does this mean for VCS Athletics?

Solano County remains in the Widespread – Purple Tier allowing youth sports to begin the use of shared equipment within our cohorts/teams during practice sessions following the CDPH guidelines for masking, social distancing to the maximum extent possible, hygiene and Equipment Sanitation. Athletes and coaches are expected to choose one team for the season, they are not to participate/coach on multiple teams during the same time frame.  Once outside competitions begin, due to the added risk of spreading the COVID virus if an athlete contracted the virus while competing with an outside school, the athlete must stop training with all other teams.

For example: If Joe is participating on the school football team, he cannot concurrently participate with his outside club basketball team.  Joe must choose to participate with only one team. Also, if Joe is currently participating on the school cross country team and practicing with his school basketball team, once he starts to compete against other schools with his cross country team, he must stop training with the basketball team until he is finished with his cross country season. This is all about protecting everyone involved and we must abide by our county order to follow the CDPH guidelines.

Donna Hagans, VCS Director of Athletics


CURRENT CIF SPORTS SCHEDULE:

IN-SEASON (In-person competitions allowed to begin according to assigned tier): Cheer (Yellow), Cross Country (Purple), Football (Orange), and Women’s Volleyball (Orange)

LIMITED PERIOD for all other high school sports: Baseball (Red), Basketball (Yellow), Competitive Cheer (Yellow), Golf (Purple), Soccer (Orange), Softball (Red), Swimming (Purple), Track & Field (Purple), and Men’s Volleyball (Orange)

Still, the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section has yet a new proposal on the table. They are preparing to vote on a new Sports Calendar for the remaining 2020-2021 school year this week. This new proposal could give the VCS sports league, the Sierra Delta League, the opportunity to determine which sports our small school league could actually make happen this spring based on anticipated movement into particular tiers. The SDL has many things to consider in their decision, such as student-athlete participation numbers, facility availability, transportation, and coaching staff to name a few. Part of the CDPH guidelines requires schools to limit their competitions to their own county and adjacent counties within the same tier. For VCS this means we can only compete with schools in the same tier and located in Solano, Napa, Sacrament, and Yolo counties respectively. The challenge for the SDL is that we are not all in adjacent counties, so VCS is not even allowed to play two of the seven league teams: Golden Sierra and Linden.

Our heads are spinning as A.D.’s as we try to manage the constant changes handed down by both the state and our CIF section along with the many unknowns of this virus. Our goal is the same at this point – we simply want our kids to be able to compete!

Donna Hagans, VCS Director of Athletics
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