NBL plans to resume football schedule with games Monday and Tuesday

As officials continue to navigate school closures and poor air quality in the wake of the deadly fires that have ravaged the North Bay for the past eight days, more adjustments have been made to the North Bay League football schedule after Santa Rosa City Schools officials gave a conditional go-ahead for teams to practice and compete.

The three Santa Rosa City Schools campuses within the league: Maria Carrillo, Montgomery and Santa Rosa, have been given permission by school district officials to resume practices on Wednesday so long as the air quality registers at 150 or lower.

That information is available at www.airnow.gov

There will be no games this weekend. Games scheduled for this weekend will instead be played Monday or Tuesday, depending on when the participants agree. Those contests are: Rancho Cotate at Santa Rosa, Maria Carrillo at Ukiah, Cardinal Newman at Windsor and Montgomery at Casa Grande.

The next round of games will be played on either Friday, Oct. 27 or Saturday, Oct. 28, again depending on agreement between both schools. Those games are: Maria Carrillo at Rancho Cotate, Cardinal Newman at Santa Rosa, Ukiah at Montgomery, Windsor at Casa Grande.

The final round of league games will be played either Friday, Nov. 3 or Saturday, Nov. 4: Rancho Cotate at Cardinal Newman, Montgomery at Maria Carrillo, Casa Grande at Santa Rosa, Windsor at Ukiah.

The games that were scheduled to be played Oct. 13 will not be rescheduled and will not count in league standings.

Despite the work in crafting and recrafting them, the schedules remain in flux.

Maria Carrillo High did not suffer damage to its facilities, but athletic director Jerry Deakins told league officials in an email Monday evening that many of the Pumas players have lost their homes and numerous players are displaced throughout the Bay Area. Head coach Jay Higgins was evacuated from his home and still hasn't returned home, as of Wednesday morning. School officials are still determining if they have enough players and enough time to be competitive.

Cardinal Newman, whose campus suffered significant damage in the fires, does not have access to its field. The team is practicing at El Molino. The Cardinals' final game of the season is scheduled as a home game, but it was unclear Monday if the facility would be ready in time to host.

In other NBL sports, the cross country league meet will be moved from Nov. 3 to Nov. 10. League coaches have agreed that all rescheduled meets will not be for points. The league champs will be decided at the meet Nov. 10.

The location of the meets will still being determined, depending on how the fires affected Spring Lake Park, the traditional site of the meet.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield. Podcasting on iTunes and SoundCloud “Overtime with Kerry Benefield.”