The CIF-SS Division 1 baseball semifinals won’t be played at Blair Field in Long Beach this season.
The games scheduled for Long Beach State’s tradition-rich stadium on Tuesday, May 30, have been moved because the university might host an NCAA baseball regional, which would create a conflict over the use of the field, the CIF-SS said Wednesday.
The Division 1 semifinals will instead be played at the designated home team’s field, or the home team may choose a different location.
“It’s precautionary,” CIF-SS spokesman and assistant commissioner Thom Simmons said in an e-mail.
“Everything we’re hearing unofficially is, once Long Beach State won the (Big West) Conference, they were pretty much guaranteed a regional. With that in mind, we had to make our decision going forward so schools could plan since the regional sites won’t be announced until the Sunday prior to Memorial Day (Monday, May 29).”
The section’s quarterfinals games are Friday.
The CIF-SS has a breakdown of the potential home sites for the semifinals. The scenarios for the county teams:
— Huntington Beach will be home (against Corona or North of Riverside);
— El Dorado will be home (against Corona or North of Riverside);
— Foothill will be home (against Redlands East Valley or Mater Dei);
— El Toro will be home (against Redlands East Valley) or on the road (against Mater Dei);
— Mater Dei will be home (against El Toro) or on the road (against Foothill).
