Rare home football championship game set vs South

Corey Costelloe.

With a continued awkward playoff seeding scenario with the CIF Central Section, championship games and even home playoff contests are a rarity for our community. While we will not know what the playoff picture looks like for the Tehachapi Warriors Football team until Nov. 3, there will be a championship game at Coy Burnett Stadium on Nov. 1.

The Warriors will host South High School for the South Yosemite Mountain League championship on our home turf. The Spartans have had a successful run this season, as have the Warriors, while the history of SYML football is written in Tehachapi with the Warriors winning the first two SYML titles, there will be legitimate competition when the two teams square off on Nov. 1.

While every league game matters in the grand scheme of things, there is certainly more importance in the matchup with South on Nov. 1 due to the winner-take all implications (assuming South defeats North prior to press time). This football championship has made its home on our Mountain for the last two seasons, and what a special way to end the regular season home schedule with a game of this magnitude.

As previously mentioned, it is increasingly difficult to have meaningful games in Tehachapi. What was once the norm has been replaced by Central Section politics and a shifting playoff picture each year depending on which way the wind is blowing thanks to the "equity model" adopted by the section several years ago. A system that I remind you tends to punish successful smaller schools such as ours in favor of mediocre large schools who are having a "bad year."

With that being said, there is no reason that we cannot make the championship game on Nov. 1 like the days of yesteryear when title games were common in Tehachapi and the place sold out. It was not strange to see nearly every light in town shut off and the lights of Coy Burnett shining amongst darkness, because everyone was at the big game. I was reminiscing with a few people the other day that my first Warrior football game was the 1987 CIF Championship game between Tehachapi and Carpinteria, which was the first of three matchups between the teams for the same stakes. While Tehachapi did not come out on top that night, I still remember the size of that crowd as a 7 year old. The grandstands packed on both sides of the stadium, even a little one could feel it. I was fortunate to experience a comparable situation as a player in 1997 but came up just short in a bid for an undefeated season losing in a CIF Championship game we hosted. It took another 10 years for Tehachapi to host a game of that magnitude, and a CIF championship contest has not been held on home soil since.

The opportunities as you can see are rare, so why not take full advantage of this league championship game as a suitable replacement for the time being? Two good football teams, one in Tehachapi trying to maintain their position at the top of the mountain in the South Yosemite Mountain League, and another in South who is trying to dethrone the reigning champs, and to do so they must do it in Tehachapi. It is a story that writes itself.

Home crowds have been amazing this season, highlighting the capacity challenges of our stadium as our area grows. Unfortunately, some of our opponents do not travel well, but hopefully with the stakes being high, South will make the drive from Bakersfield to add to the drama and the scene on Nov. 1. But, that is beyond our control.

We can control our own actions, and hopefully those include ticket purchases for the Nov. 1 league championship game with the local crowd appropriately dressed to deal with the anticipated temperatures in the low 40s and high 30s during the game. Not cold by our standards but those temps equate to Antarctica as far as most opponents are concerned. So we will take that one advantage, couple it with a large and LOUD bunch of local supporters and get ready for a historic night at a historic venue as Tehachapi seeks their 34th league championship.

Corey Costelloe has covered NCAA, professional and local sports for more than 20 years as a reporter, broadcaster and athletics administrator. He advocates for the value of athletic competition and serves as the President of the Tehachapi Warriors Booster Club. He can be reached at [email protected].