SRJC soccer traveling out of area for playoff openers

Both the men's and women's soccer teams from Santa Rosa Junior College are on the road Saturday for the first round of the Northern California regional playoffs.

The men's team had been scheduled to travel south to Taft, a campus southwest of Bakersfield, all along, but the No. 8-seeded women's team had to scramble to secure a site to play No. 9 City College of San Francisco after ongoing air quality issues nixed sites all across the Bay Area and North Coast.

The women are scheduled to play at Hartnell College in Salinas at 1 p.m. Saturday.

“We have worked every avenue possible to try to have this closer to home,” head coach Crystal Howard said.

It was either travel to Salinas or postpone the contest a week, she said.

And after days of practicing indoors, the Bear Cubs - who went 13-5-3 overall and 10-4-2 in the Big 8 - are ready to play full-field, playoff soccer, Howard said.

“We are just ready. We are excited,” she said.

The men's team boarded a bus and headed south Friday morning.

The team, 10-7-1 overall and 5-3-1 in the Big 8 Conference, earned the No. 14 seed and is set to face No. 3 Taft at 2 p.m.

The winner will advance to play the winner of the No. 6 Butte versus No. 11 Cosumnes River game. That game is slated to be played Tuesday or Wednesday.

But as every student-athlete and coach in the area now knows, schedules mean little in the face of the massive, deadly wildfire that has raged in Butte County and enveloped all of the North Bay in a persistent haze of poor air quality.

The Bear Cubs haven't played outside on natural grass since Nov. 8.

“We're a good indoor team,” head coach Marty Kinahan said.

The modified practice schedule has frustrated the Bear Cubs, something Kinahan hopes will be an advantage against a defensive Taft squad.

“I think it's going to be advantageous for us. We are like caged animals,” he said. “We are trying to flip it.”

The team has practiced at Epicenter, in the school's small gym and in Haehl Pavilion between men's and women's basketball team practices.

“Everybody is just sharing right now and trying to stay busy,” Kinahan said. “It's difficult for the boys, it's difficult for the coaches. It's not helping us, but it's out of our control.”

In other soccer news, the Tech High girls soccer team will have to wait a week before they host No. 2 seed St. Bernard's for the Division 3 North Coast Section title.

The Titans have gone 18-0-2 this season and 12-0-1 in league en route to earning the top seed in the section.

The game had been scheduled to be played Saturday.

The Anderson Valley boys, another top seed in Division 3 soccer, have also seen the championship game rescheduled because of air quality.

The final game between No. 1 Anderson Valley and No. 2 Jewish Community of San Francisco was scheduled to take place in Boonville Thursday but was postponed.

A new time and date for the final had not been announced as of late Friday.

The Panthers are 11-5-4 overall and went 7-4-2 in the North Central II League.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield. Podcasting on iTunes and SoundCloud, “Overtime with Kerry Benefield.”