The WCAL’s role in Riordan’s tuberculosis crisis and why Bellarmine, St. Francis were assessed forfeit losses

The West Catholic Athletic League has had a challenging few weeks.

When news emerged that Archbishop Riordan had three active tuberculosis cases on campus, the league shifted into a crisis mode similar to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Games were postponed, then rescheduled to open dates later in the league season, which was rapidly coming to an end. Health officials got involved, and testing plans were put in place to navigate the unexpected outbreak on Riordan’s campus.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health, in conjunction with its counterparts in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, gave Riordan the go-ahead to resume competition om Feb. 4. But the challenges didn’t end there.

St. Francis and Bellarmine, both scheduled to play Riordan last week, chose not to. Both teams were assessed forfeit losses, as the WCAL simply didn’t have any more days to reschedule games.

“We had to call them something,” WCAL commissioner Jolene Fugate told the Bay Area News Group. “We couldn’t call them no contest, because it would imbalance our league standings.”

So the two South Bay schools were served with defeats, while Riordan picked up a pair of forfeit wins.

The Crusaders finally got back on the court Tuesday night, their first game in two weeks. They won on the road over Archbishop Mitty.

After the game, Riordan coach Joey Curtin expressed disappointment that his team had been sidelined for so long. Mitty coach Tim Kennedy said he and his team had no reservations about playing Riordan.

Why, then, did two of their league mates refuse to face the Crusaders?

St. Francis declined to comment when reached by the Bay Area News Group. Bellarmine athletic director Kevin Saldivar told the Bay Area News that it was a collective decision.

“As it kind of came down, the group and the community, we just couldn’t play the game,” Saldivar said. “And so we decided to forfeit.”

Fugate said that once the WCAL got approval from health officials to resume play, its hands were tied.

“It was really important to find out if we could play,” she said. “Once we did that, then we had to figure out, ‘What do we do?’ And then school administrations worked within their school communities to determine if they were playing or not. That’s why it was no longer a league thing.”

Even before the forfeits last week, the WCAL was running out of dates to reschedule games. With no more dates remaining and players cleared to play, time was up.

“We’re just trying to keep the kids going,” Fugate said.

After a long stoppage, Riordan will have about a week to get things into gear before the Central Coast Section playoffs start.

The Crusaders are two games into a run of five games in eight days that has gotten off to a good start with convincing wins over Mitty and Sacred Heart Cathedral.

Curtin told the Bay Area News Group that while the situation Riordan finds itself in is far from ideal, there are opportunities to be found for the Crusaders as they get an intense ramp-up period to postseason competition.

“When you get to this point of the season, some guys don’t really play for a long time,” Curtin said after facing Mitty on Tuesday. “Because you’re in league play, the games are usually closer, so you’re relying on your normal rotation a lot more than you would in a preseason game where you’re gonna have a team that maybe you beat by a lot. We’ll get even further down our bench tomorrow and hopefully we can do that in one of the weekend games.”

As Fugate mentioned, the WCAL is looking to move forward from the last few weeks. Lessons learned from past challenges helped the league get through this round.

“Our administrations did great,” she said. “There’s been lots of communication between all the schools. I know it was two weeks, but this happened quite fast, to be honest. We knew that we had to talk to the health department. We knew all this stuff from COVID. The difference with COVID was we were all in it together, whereas this situation involved one school. So how do we come around them as a league?”