King Holiday Causes Postponements

A Moorpark Unified School District rule prohibiting athletic contests on holidays caused the rescheduling of Monday’s basketball games between Moorpark and Royal highs.

Games between Agoura and Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks and Westlake were played as scheduled on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.

But the girls’ game between Moorpark and Royal was postponed and played Tuesday, and the boys’ game was rescheduled for Monday.

“[Moorpark] asked us if we could reschedule the games to another day because of their [school district] rule, and we didn’t have a problem with that,” said Jim Wilber, the girls’ athletic director at Royal. “We wanted to play all the games on Tuesday, but their boys’ teams couldn’t do that for some reason.”

Lou Lichtl, athletic director at Westlake, wasn’t thrilled about playing games on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. But the alternative was to play next Monday, when the majority of Marmonte League schools, including Westlake, begin final exams.

“We try to stay away from [playing three games in a week] when we can,” Lichtl said. “But we’d rather do it this week than next week.”