Pac-7 League will move as a whole in 2018 Fall Sports

For the first time since 1901 the PRHS Athletic Program starting the 2018-’19 school year will change to the Central Section.

Bearcat Athletics are currently competing in the CIF Southern Section but is making the change to the Central Section. For the past ten to twelve years, administration talked about a change in sections, but the idea was never put into works by previous athletic directors. For the past two or three years, the switch has been in the works and finally next season it will take action.

There were many reasons why the push was so big to move to the Central Sections- for example, traveling five hours to anaheim and back in one day. PRHS is one of the most northernmost schools in the Southern Section and traveling six hours for the playoff game is difficult. Teams are now looking at a two-hour trip max as far as traveling with Central.

PRHS will not be the only school moving athletic sections. This realignment will involve all thirteen schools in the PAC 8 and Los Padres athletic leagues, including schools such as Arroyo Grande, Atascadero, San Luis Obispo and many more. Since all of our league is also moving sections

In CIF playoffs PRHS will now face teams from Clovis, Fresno, and Bakersfield that are considered “top programs”, according to Track and XC Coach, Anthony Overton. This includes Clovis East, Clovis West, Clovis North, Buchanan, Madara, Liberty, Bullard, Central, Lemoore and more that PRHS will compete against.

Currently there are 115 schools in the central section and 500 plus schools in the Southern Section.

“This is a huge difference in numbers of schools and it gives us a more of a competitive advantage as far as competing and to gain and win more CIF championships” stated PRHS Athletic Director Anthony Morales.

Competing in the central section there is only a fifth of the schools compared to the southern section, which means there is less depth in the level of competition.

“For us, that means more teams will compete in a higher division (many of our programs in Division 1). Also, with fewer teams in the central section, all teams will get a first round playoff berth each season” stated Overton

California Interscholastic Federation, or as many people would recognize it, CIF, is a governing body for High School Sports in the state of California. It is broken up into sections such as Central, Central Coast, Los Angeles City, North Coast, Northern, Oakland, Sac-Joaquin, San Diego, San Francisco, and Southern.