Skip to content
AuthorDan Albano. Sports HS Reporter.

// MORE INFORMATION: Staff Mug Shot taken August 26, 2010 : by KATE LUCAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER.Associate mug of Kenny Connolly, Anaheim reporter.

Date shot: 12/31/2012 . Photo by KATE LUCAS /  ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

With most of Orange County experiencing severe heat conditions, some of the county’s high school sports programs are responding by taking precautionary measures to beat the heat.

In Anaheim, where the temperature reached 101 on Monday, Esperanza High’s football team pushed the start of practice back from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Aztecs coach Gary Bowers also moved his team’s practice from the school’s turf field to grass.

“It’s a difference of 12 degrees,” Bowers said of the field shift.

Yorba Linda High pushed back its football practices as well.

“Normally we go from 3 to 6 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays,” Mustangs coach Jeff Bailey said. “This week, we’ll go from 5 to 8 p.m. today (Monday) and 6 to 9 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday).”

Bailey joked that there is something Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District leaders could do to help.

“I’ve been trying to get them to give our stadium a retractable roof,” Bailey said.

The temperature Monday in Yorba Linda was 102, and it’s supposed to stay in triple digits on Tuesday.

Yorba Linda’s field is artificial turf, which does not absorb heat as well as natural grass does. Bailey said a pre-practice watering down of the field can help.

Some schools in cooler areas of the county went about business as they normally would. Edison, located in Huntington Beach, conducted practice on Monday as it normally does.

Thom Simmons, the CIF-Southern Section’s director of communications, said the section isn’t stepping and telling the schools how to conduct their practices.

“It’s the responsibility of the schools to decide,” Simmons said.

Part of that reasoning, Simmons said, is because the Southern Section is so big, and weather differs so much from region to region.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, which covers a much smaller area, cancelled all outside events that were scheduled for Monday and Tuesday.

JSerra cross country coach Marty Dugard moved his team’s practices to 6 a.m. this week to try to beat the heat.

The concerns about heat and air quality canceled cross country practice at Savanna on Monday, Rebels coach Jon Binder said.

“We erred on the side of caution,” he said.

Binder said the Orange League’s cluster meet opener scheduled for Wednesday at Irvine Regional Park has also been postponed.

The park has served as a staging areas for fire crews fighting the Silverado Fire.

Assistant boys water polo coach Dennis Nelson said the Anaheim Union High School District sent a reminder about the importance of hydration, but the Rebels didn’t alter their practice schedule.

“We’re in the water,” he said. “We really don’t change much with the heat.”

With temperatures in Los Angeles expected to reach triple digits on Tuesday afternoon, the top-ranked University girls tennis team had its highly anticipated nonleague showdown with Campbell Hall High cancelled.

High temperatures in North Hollywood, where the Campbell Hall campus is located, forced the school to cancel Tuesday’s match. No makeup date has been scheduled.