Rivera denied eligibility to play next year for Newport Harbor
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It isn’t too often you’ll see Coach Rocky Ciarelli become emotional with his voice shaky and holding back tears. But that was the case Tuesday night at the Newport Harbor High boys’ volleyball team awards banquet.
Ciarelli delivered some unfortunate and somewhat shocking news that the CIF Southern Section denied standout setter Carlos Rivera another year of playing eligibility. Ciarelli was upset that the 2016 season turned out to be Rivera’s final year of boys’ volleyball.
Rivera is a junior, academically, after leaving for Puerto Rico last spring during what was his junior year at Marina in Huntington Beach.
Rivera said he was going to gather information to apply for a hardship at the CIF Southern Section office on Monday when he was told that he would be denied.
“I stayed strong when I was facing [the CIF representative] but when I left I couldn’t keep it in,” said Rivera, a first-team All-Sunset League selection and a Sailors’ team captain. “That’s hard. Even though this would be my senior year, I’m not a senior. It hits me hard knowing that my senior year, the year that should be your best year, it’s gone. You can’t play and you can’t do the thing you love.”
Rivera said he competed in volleyball as a freshman in New Jersey. Then played his sophomore year at Marina, where he also played as a junior, yet only played until late March. He left Marina because of a family emergency and needed to move to Puerto Rico.
He returned to California this school year and enrolled at Newport Harbor, where he still plans to graduate next year.
“Once we lost [to Beckman in the CIF Southern Section Division 1 second round] we were sad and a little mad,” Rivera said. “I think they can still do it next year. This is pretty hard for them and for me knowing that I can’t play next year.”
Newport Harbor will return 10 players from this past season that saw the Sailors finish 22-8 and earn a share of the Sunset League title with a 9-1 record.
“It was not handled well, I don’t think, by us, or by me,” Ciarelli said. “I didn’t want to go into it during the season. And then CIF decided, no way. He came in kind of late. To get him eligible it took some work, to make sure he was on the up and up. During the season I didn’t want him dealing with it. Then, now the end of the season, CIF said no way.”
Rivera, who turns 18 in October, said he looks forward to competing in club volleyball.