LAKE COUNTY >> There’s no place like home for the start of a new football season and all five Lake County high schools will be playing in familiar surroundings to open the 2016 campaign.
Lower Lake gets things rolling on Aug. 26 when it hosts De Anza of El Sobrante at Gordon Sadler Field. The Trojans are the only Lake County school playing on what is referred to as zero week on the North Coast Section calendar. Clear Lake, Kelseyville, Middletown and Upper Lake are delaying the start of their season by another week and officially kick things off the weekend of Sept. 2-3.
Sept. 2 openers feature South Fork at Clear Lake, which also marks the debut of new Clear Lake head coach Mark Cory, Healdsburg at Kelseyville, and Salesian at Middletown, the definite headliner as these two small-school powerhouses once again collide in week one. On Sept. 3, the Upper Lake Cougars and new head coach Mike Smith host Rincon Valley Christian in both the season and North Central League III opener for both schools. Upper Lake is the defending NCL III champion.
Clear Lake, Kelseyville, Lower Lake and Middletown all compete in the NCL I, a league that added a team in the offseason as St. Vincent of Petaluma, formerly of the defunct NCL II, left the Bay Football League after the 2015 season (it used to belong to the NCL I South when the league had North and South divisions).
The addition of St. Vincent to the NCL I means that the now nine league teams will play eight league games instead of seven as in past seasons, leaving only two weeks open for non-league opponents. Many of the NCL I schools play their league openers the weekend of Sept. 9-10.
