When the CIF Southern Section football playoffs brackets come out Sunday morning, the school name many will be looking for is “Santa Margarita.”
Santa Margarita’s 3-6 record and standing in the Trinity League have the Eagles in a precarious position, a position that might no longer be precarious if they beat Servite on Friday, the final date of the CIF-SS 11-man football season.
That game’s results could be important for Servite’s playoff fate, too. More on that later.
The Eagles are 3-6 going into the Trinity League game against the Friars at Trabuco Hills High. They are 0-4 in the league. The top three finishers in a six-team league like the Trinity are in CIF-SS parlance “automatic qualifiers,” meaning they are guaranteed berths in the CIF-SS playoffs that begin next week.
Santa Margarita, of course, is not going to be among the top three finishers in the Trinity League, which will be, in order Mater Dei, St. John Bosco and Orange Lutheran. The only way Santa Margarita can get into the football playoffs is as an “at-large” team, which is known as a wild-card team in pro sports. Schools must apply for at-large berth consideration, and those applications must be submitted by 11 p.m. Friday. Santa Margarita submitted an application.
CIF-SS rules state that a football team must finish .500 or better overall for priority consideration for an at-large berth over teams with sub-.500 records. Sometimes sub-.500 teams get in, but it is rare. Santa Margarita at best will finish 4-6.
Last year CIF-SS Division 1 was an eight-team bracket. If Division 1 is an eight-team group again, Santa Margarita could be out of playoff contention.
To explain …
The CIF Southern Section uses Calpreps.com’s ratings of football teams to place teams into playoff divisions, as long as those teams are automatic qualifiers or meet the at-large team criteria.
The Calpreps ratings’ top eight CIF-SS teams are, in this order (ratings points in parentheses): 1. Mater Dei (100.9), 2. St. John Bosco (82.6), 3. Orange Lutheran (81.3), 4. Mission Viejo (77.7), 5. Corona Centennial (77.5), 6. JSerra (74.7), 7. Servite (68.2) and 8. Sierra Canyon (66.1).
No. 9 this week is Santa Margarita at 65.7. But if Division 1 is an eight-team bracket, Santa Margarita cannot be in Division 2.
CIF-SS rules as established by its football advisory committee stipulate that an at-large team cannot be the No. 1 team, the top-seeded team in a playoff division. The team that sits atop the Division 2 bracket must be an automatic qualifier, which Santa Margarita will not be.
If Santa Margarita wallops Servite, maybe Santa Margarita jumps over Sierra Canyon, which plays a very good Serra team Friday, and becomes the No. 8 team and Sierra Canyon is No. 9. Or maybe that No. 9 team will be Servite, although a Santa Margarita and Sierra Canyon leap over Servite is unlikely given the ratings points gap.
If Servite is No. 9 and Division 1 is an eight-team bracket, then Servite would miss the playoffs because Servite is going to be an at-large team and, again, an at-large team cannot be the top team in a division. If Sierra Canyon is the No. 9 team in the final regular-season ratings then Sierra Canyon, which will be an automatic qualifier, could be the top-seeded team in Division 2.
If it is decided that Division 1 is a 16-team bracket, then that solves all sorts of issues. So would a nine-team bracket for Division 1 – the division’s Nos. 8 and 9 teams play each other next week while the other seven teams get a bye, and the Nos. 8 vs. 9 winner plays Mater Dei in two weeks.
CIF-SS assistant commissioner and section spokesman Thom Simmons said this week that, with so many variables in play, the section is not leaning toward any size for the Division 1 bracket until Friday results are in.
Sunday morning is going to be an interesting one in CIF Southern Section and Orange County football.
NOTES
The CIF-SS Division 1 flag football semifinals on Saturday are made up of Orange County teams: Canyon at Orange Lutheran and Newport Harbor at Huntington Beach. Newport Harbor defeated Huntington Beach in their two Sunset League games. Orange Lutheran beat Canyon in a nonleague game. …
Both of the Division 2 flag football semifinals were moved to Monday. Trabuco Hills is at Edison and Long Beach Poly is at Northwood. The Division 3 semifinals are San Clemente at Beckman and ML King at Troy. In the Division 4 semifinals JW North is at Fullerton. …
The CIF-SS girls volleyball playoffs continue Saturday in Division 1 with the final round of pool play. Sierra Canyon is 2-0 in Pool A, Mater Dei 2-0 in Pool B. Mater Dei is home against Huntington Beach, 0-2 in Pool B, on Saturday, with Los Alamitos (1-1) at Redondo (1-1). …
In Saturday girls volleyball semifinals: Santa Margarita at Palos Verdes in Division 2; Cypress travels to Santa Barbara to play Bishop Diego in Division 3; El Dorado is at Newbury Park in Division 4; Laguna Beach is at Paraclete of Lancaster in Division 7; and Garden Grove is home against A.B. Miller in Division 8. …
A note about Laguna Beach’s girls volleyball team in the semifinals: The Breakers finished 3-5 in the Pacific Coast League and took a 5-25 overall record into the playoffs. …
Beckman’s boys cross country team won the championship in the Divisions 1 and 2 Sweepstakes Division race at the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational this past weekend. Mason Nguyen, a junior, finished second in 15 minutes, 3 seconds to lead the Patriots, who were champions at the Clovis Invitational on Oct. 12. Beckman sophomore Ryan Barris was seventh at 15:22.
Leave a Reply