Burroughs football game versus West Ranch canceled
For a second consecutive day, the La Tuna Fire wreaked havoc and, in the process, pushed back the start of the Burroughs High football season.
With a rescheduled game set for Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Canyon High, Burroughs was forced to cancel its contest with West Ranch, only this time the game is unlikely to be rescheduled.
Due to the fire creating unsafe air conditions and extreme heat, the Indians’ season opener versus West Ranch on Friday at 7 p.m. at Memorial Field was moved to Saturday night in the Santa Clarita Valley, but the rescheduled contest was called Saturday afternoon around 3.
“We’ve been monitoring the temperature and really monitoring the air quality more so than the temperature all day long,” Burroughs coach Mike Reily said. “Up until about 1 p.m., 1:30, are quality was still good up there. … All of a sudden, within about an hour, it got bad.”
Windy conditions pushed smoke from the La Tuna Fire, which was only 10% contained and had burned more than 8,000 acres as of this publishing, into Canyon Country. The game had been rescheduled as the air quality remained even worse in Burbank and West Ranch does not have an on-campus field and its shared homefield of Valencia High was occupied.
Reily was communicating with West Ranch athletic director Cassandra Perez after some of Reily’s assistant coaches who live in the Santa Clarita Valley told him the air quality had declined. After driving to Canyon, Perez delivered the bad news.
“She texted me and said, ‘Coach, this isn’t going to be able to happen,’” Reily said.
West Ranch (1-0) had already opened its season with a zero week contest, but Burroughs is still left looking to kick off 2017 and move past a 4-6 campaign a year ago.
But with soaring temperatures throughout the week putting practices and games in jeopardy and then the La Tuna Fire igniting and bordering Burbank, Burroughs’ football plans were thrown into uncertainty.
“This whole week’s just been kind of doomed,” Reily said. “Maybe the football gods just didn’t want this game to take place.”
The game was to be the first meeting for the programs, linked as Burroughs and Burbank departed the Foothill League after the 2005 season to make way for West Ranch and Golden Valley to join it.
While Reily didn’t completely close the door on a possible rescheduling of the game, it’s highly unlikely as Burroughs does not have a bye week, so the game would need to be played on a Monday or Tuesday. Reily said “there was no discussion of forfeits” on the teams’ records.
The game was one of three area football games canceled. La Cañada was set to host South Hills on Friday night, but the game was called during warm-ups due to bad air quality. Hoover’s game against Sotomayor was called early in the week as Sotomayor announced it would have no available administrators due to the school being on a four-day holiday weekend.
So, the Indians, hoping to snap a streak of eight consecutive losses in season openers, will now look to Friday’s game at Royal as their new 2017 kickoff. Before that, though, concerns remain about even conducting practices. Reily said the team is set to practice Monday morning in the hopes of cooler temperatures, but air quality will be monitored and the practice could move indoors or end up as just a film session.
“First and foremost, you put everything into perspective. This is a high school football game; it’s pretty small potatoes when you see people evacuating their homes,” Reily said. “But in our small high school football world, it has been crazy. It was our first game, everyone was excited.
“It just wasn’t meant to be. Of course, the kids are bummed, the kids are disappointed.”
Twitter: @TCNGrantGordon
