Rain Puts a Damper on High School Athletic Events

Rain, rain, go away.

That was the sentiment of most area high school athletic directors and coaches whose sports schedules were left in limbo by Tuesday’s vicious storm.

Athletic directors spent much of the day on the phone to counterparts at other high schools to decide the fate of this week’s scheduled sporting events. Rain-swollen soccer fields and leaky gymnasiums, not to mention closed highways and high schools, made for headaches.

All City Section events were postponed as was every soccer game in the region because of rain-drenched fields, and several schools opted to keep their boys’ and girls’ basketball teams off wet highways and postponed games or canceled practice.

All City events today have also been postponed or canceled.

Meanwhile, in the chaos of the rainy day, some athletic directors were simply left twisting in the wind.

“Our girls’ basketball team was supposed to play Cate (in Santa Barbara County),” said Kristine Ragland, athletic director at Campbell Hall. “Now there’s a good place to be, Santa Barbara. We called them and they don’t even answer the phone. They’re probably busy being evacuated.”

Several schools in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, including Santa Paula, Santa Clara, Moorpark and Bishop Diego, were closed indefinitely because of flooded campuses.

But those schools aren’t the only ones affected. In Lancaster, Paraclete officials sent students home and closed its doors at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials kept schools open but are poised to close schools if the storm persists.

Alemany, which is in Mission Hills, will be closed today, according to Dudley Rooney, the school’s athletic director. “It’s really bad around here,” Rooney said at 3:15 p.m. “Another two hours and we’ll all be under water.”

Alemany girls’ basketball Coach Melissa Hearlihy canceled practice Tuesday, even though the Indians are scheduled to play Flintridge Sacred Heart today at L.A. Baptist in North Hills.

Losers in three of their last six games, the Indians (10-3) appreciate the time off to reload.

“We’re all pretty happy we didn’t have practice,” Hearlihy said. “We never got a break during the holiday.”

Meanwhile, area soccer teams, many of which were scheduled to begin league play this week, will be hard pressed to get in a full complement of league games if the rain continues to disrupt schedules.

“Our problem is that we have three contests this week,” said Saugus athletic director Joe Stadum. “And there is no way we can play (today). Our (field) is a mud bowl, it’s so saturated.”

Things looked about the same over in Glendale at Hoover High, according to Randy Tiffany, the school’s athletic director.

“We have a lake out on our field,” Tiffany said. “But we’ll try to play Friday.”

Wet fields were not the only problem. Many area gymnasiums leak. Because of a leaky gym, the Burbank-Canyon boys’ basketball game Tuesday night was moved from Canyon High to College of the Canyons. Changing the original game plan was nothing new for Dave Harris, athletic director at Canyon High.

“It’s been like this for 25 years. They patch one place and (the leak) just moves to a new place,” Harris said.

Dave Desmond and Bryan Rodgers also contributed to this story.

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