Rain Puts Crimp in Mater Dei-Eisenhower Ticket Sale

Inclement weather and Anaheim Stadium’s rain clause has dampened the most attractive high school championship football game in Orange County in 11 years.

Bill Clark, Southern Southern administrator, said only 6,000 tickets have been allocated to Mater Dei and Rialto Eisenhower, participants in the Division I championship game Friday night at Anaheim Stadium, because of the facility’s rain clause.

“The rain clause is in effect because of the Freedom Bowl (Dec. 30) and our alternate facility is Cerritos College, which holds 12,000,” Clark said. “At this time, we had to be reasonable.

“We gave each school about 6,000 tickets. When we get a better grasp on the weather later this week, we’ll release more tickets to each school.”

Mater Dei Athletic Director Gary McKnight said the school’s boosters bought 1,000 reserved tickets before the school’s financial office began selling tickets. The school sold its allotment of reserved tickets Tuesday.

The last big prep football game at Anaheim Stadium involving county teams was in 1980, when Fountain Valley and Edison drew 28,969.

Southern Section Commissioner Stan Thomas said Friday’s game could be moved to Cerritos College as late as 2 p.m. Friday. Tickets will go on sale at the stadium box office on game day if the weather clears. If the game is at Cerritos, there will be no public sale of tickets.