Blue Cut Fire forces Serrano football to miss prep time

Serrano High School football coach Ray Maholchic hopes his team won’t be at too much of a disadvantage next week.
Just more than a week away from their Aug. 26 season opener at home against Lancaster Paraclete, the team will miss five days of practice this week because of the Blue Cut Fire.
With the fire escalating quickly Tuesday, practice was cancelled that day and school has been cancelled for the rest of the week. Maholchic, who is also the school’s athletic director, said the Snowline Joint Unified School District’s policy is no practices can be held if school is cancelled for reasons such as a wildfire.
“This is kind of a first for us. We’re done for the week,” Maholchic said. “We’ve got limited practice opportunities. This sets us back a little bit.”
Serrano had been set to scrimmage at Redlands on Friday with the freshman team scheduled to host Redlands Thursday in a scrimmage.
Serrano will now go without the scrimmage and Redlands will join a scrimmage at Grand Terrace that includes Grand Terrace, Chino and Riverside Norte Vista.
“Usually, we have a scrimmage where we can correct some things, but we’ll go right into game week,” Maholchic said.
Maholchic, who was evacuated from his home in Wrightwood, where many of his players also live, expects to be back at school and practicing as usual on Monday. He also expects to be able to play next week’s game at home.
First, I hope that as many homes as possible can be saved from this brutal fire, and not just those who are with Serrano football.
That being said, you have to wonder how well the football players are doing emotionally, even if their families and homes are safe.
I hope it doesn’t have too much of a negative impact on them as they prepare for their Week 0 game. In addition, I hope there won’t be any issues with playing the game at Serrano.

Share this

Facebook Twitter Plusone Digg Reddit Stumbleupon Tumblr Email