Sonora’s boys basketball team received some good news Friday when the CIF Southern Section announced that Raiders standouts Daniel Esparza and Marqui Worthy are eligible to play.
Sonora coach Mike Murphy said Esparza, a senior guard who was the 2019-20 season Freeway League MVP, will be in the team’s lineup Tuesday, March 30 when the Raiders open the season with a home game against Brea Olinda.
Murphy is doubtful Worthy, an all-league junior forward who has a scholarship offer from San Diego State, will be on the Sonora team.
The CIF-SS office looked into the possibility that when Esparza and Worthy played for the Veritas Prep basketball program this past winter they put their athletic eligibility in jeopardy. Murphy said Esparza and Worthy thought they were playing in a club program, not a high school program. Veritas is a prep school in Santa Fe Springs that is not a CIF-SS member school.
Many Orange County players played for club teams while the season was not underway during the coronavirus-related shutdown of high school sports in California.
The CIF-SS examined the situation this month. On Friday the CIF-SS office announced: “After completing our fact finding process we have informed our member schools involved that after reviewing the entire information, there are no suspensions for any of the players in question.”
Murphy said Worthy plans to enroll at Veritas and continue his high school basketball days there. Murphy said Worthy is convinced that playing for Veritas would improve his recruiting profile.
“By the end of the weekend,” Murphy said, “I hope I can change his mind.”
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