The Catholic Central League didn’t waste any time after the MIAA approved a new athletic calendar earlier this week, moving quickly to set up a structure for a new in-league schedule for the upcoming fall sports season.
In the new structure of the in-league schedule, practices for all fall sports — boys and girls soccer, field hockey, volleyball, cross country and golf — will begin on Sept. 18 as recently approved by the MIAA. For golf, matches will start seven days later on Sept. 25 and run until Oct. 28. For all other sports, games will begin on Oct. 2 and run until Nov. 14. These dates are based on the MIAA Sports Medicine Committee recommendation that all fall sports except golf must practice for 14 days before playing games. Golf must practice for seven days before matches.
For soccer, volleyball and field hockey, St. Mary’s will play each team in the league one time with the potential to play more games against local teams such as Fenwick or Austin Prep in what would amount to a 10-game schedule. Cross country will play a five-meet schedule with an additional freshman-sophomore meet. For golf, the Spartans will play each of the other teams in the CCL Large (Archbishop Williams, Arlington Catholic, Austin Prep and Cardinal Spellman) twice and then play each of the other CCL teams once to make up a 16-match schedule.
Fenwick will use a similar structure to St. Mary’s for each of its respective sports.
The CCL has also set up plans for conference tournaments in each sport, with the tentative dates scheduled for the week of Nov. 14-20. The CCL golf league championship is planned for Oct. 30.
“Once we understood the parameters of what we needed to do in terms of practice time and when games could start, our league was able to come together quickly and come up with a great structure,” said St. Mary’s athletic director Jeff Newhall. “We’ve been working hard to get to this point and I think we’re in a really good position right now.”
“We had been meeting all along for about a month, so we felt like we were prepared for whatever decision was going to be handed down,” said Bishop Fenwick athletic director Dave Woods. “Now that we know what we can do, it’s time to really buckle down and figure out the details.”
The CCL expanded this year and is now made up of St. Mary’s, Bishop Fenwick, Archbishop Williams, Arlington Catholic, Austin Prep, Bishop Feehan, Bishop Stang, Cardinal Spellman, Cathedral, Cristo Rey, Matignon and St. Joseph’s Prep. Bishop Feehan and Bishop Stang are new members of the league for the 2020-2021 season.
Both Newhall and Woods feel that the addition of new schools makes for an exciting new twist on the league schedule, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Both schools require a bit of a trip for us, but it’s a great thing for our league to have Bishop Feehan and Bishop Stang join the CCL,” said Newhall. “Both schools help the competitiveness of our league and help the standing of our league. Not to mention, the additions simply give us more games that we can schedule in this new structure.”
“Obviously travel will be a bit of a challenge this year in particular, but it’s great having them in the league,” said Woods. “Hopefully both schools are able to participate in as much league play as possible.”
League athletic directors are already hard at work collaborating to set up schedules for each sport. In addition, plans for spectators, transportation, COVID-19 protocols and a host of other issues are things that still need to be ironed out.
“We’ve come a long way in a short time and I think we’re in as good a position as any other league in the state,” said Newhall. “That being said, we still have a lot of things we need to work on moving forward.”
Individual team schedules are set to be released next week.
