Prep column: Fighting the good fight

Barry Faulkner

NEWPORT BEACH - Sometimes, the squeaky wheel is merely banished to

the back of the storage shed.

Newport Harbor High boys and girls volleyball coach Dan Glenn, who

joins Corona del Mar High boys tennis coach Tim Mang as, perhaps, the

foremost critics of the current CIF Southern Section playoff system,

still has not given up hope of getting his obligatory ration of grease.

Shot down before in his attempts to allow schools with smaller

enrollments to seek the best level of competition, i.e. playing schools

with the biggest enrollments in the upper divisions of the playoffs,

Glenn’s blackboard has spawned yet another potential solution.

Glenn’s proposed CIF Southern Section Boys Volleyball Championships

would not conflict with the current enrollment-based divisional system,

but merely act as a supplement.

First, he would shorten the current Southern Section division playoffs

by one week, without eliminating any matches.

Then, he would create a one-week tournament to crown a section

champion, from a pool of top teams from any and all divisions. This is

similar to a Masters format that exists in track and field and wrestling,

where qualifiers from all section divisions compete for the right to

represent the Southern Section in state championships.

Since there is no boys volleyball state championship, competition for

one section title (all divisions), would be the final rung on the sport’s

competitive ladder.

Glenn proposes the section tournament consist of the section’s five

division finalists (10 teams), who would be seeded, then aligned in a

bracket, beginning the Monday after the section title matches.

On Monday, the No. 10 seed would play No. 8 and No. 9 would play No. 7

for the right to advance. The 10-8 winner would then meet the No. 1 seed

on Tuesday, when No. 2 would meet the 9-7 winner, No. 4 would play No. 5

and No. 3 would battle No. 6.

The semifinals would be Thursday and the finals Saturday.

The top five seeds would be given travel priority (home-court

advantage) just like the current system used for the girls state

volleyball playoffs.

The one-week window would not extend the season, since the section

playoffs would be condensed into one less week (opening with Tuesday

wild-card matches, Wednesday first-round contests and Friday second-round

battles, rather than the current format which plays first-round matches

on Friday after four days off).

Though it would require additional administration by the section

office, it would pad section coffers by drawing the kind of crowds that

don’t exist when Corona del Mar plays at Brethren Christian in its annual

waltz to the Division IV title match.

Most important, according to Glenn, crowning one Southern Section

champion would preserve some of the sport’s history, which includes five

major division titles for tiny Laguna Beach, not to mention CdM’s pair of

4-A crowns.

Glenn, whose team played in the last two Division I title matches, but

is stuck in Division III this spring, plans to introduce the proposal as

a non-action item at the April 26 Southern Section Council meeting. It

could be voted upon at the first council meeting next fall.

For his part, Mang said recently that CIF officials are considering

changes in the current tennis playoffs. But Southern Section Commissioner

Jim Staunton, as well as more than one assistant commissioner, have said

there is no outcry for change in the current system.

Gordon McNeill, the Corona del Mar High varsity boys basketball

assistant who previously said he would have no interest in filling the

coaching job vacated when Paul Orris resigned Feb. 26, has changed his

mind and will apply after all.

“I talked about it with Paul and he made me realize this could be an

opportunity for me,” McNeill said. One reason for McNeill’s original

reservations was the unsettled status of where his wife, an aspiring

doctor, would serve her residency next year. It now appears she’ll be at

UCI, allowing McNeill to put down roots.

Costa Mesa High baseball coach Kirk Bauermeister isn’t the only

Mustang head man not afraid to play big bad Mater Dei.

Boys basketball coach Bob Serven said he has scheduled Coach Gary

McKnight’s reigning CIF State Division I champions for a Dec. 7 home

game.