CIF passes new playoffs system

Roger Carlson

Frustrated coaches in tennis and volleyball have been granted a

reprieve of sorts following Thursday’s CIF Southern Section Council

Meeting in Long Beach where a proposal was passed which will allow every

sport aside from basketball and track and field to be grouped in the

playoffs by strength, instead of enrollment-based considerations on a

league-by-league basis.

Among those most affected are volleyball programs at Newport Harbor

and Corona del Mar, and Corona del Mar tennis.

“It sounds like they’ve reinvented the wheel,” said Newport Harbor

volleyball coach Dan Glenn, whose teams have been stuck in Division II-AA

for the past few seasons.

Traditionally a Division I program, it would appear the Sea View

League would move back into the Division I arena with other volleyball

powers, such as the South Coast League, Bay League and Sunset League.

Newport Harbor was a Division II-AA school last year by the scant

margin of seven students in the enrollment-based system. Eight less

students and Newport Harbor would have been in Division III.

The new format will not be concerned with enrollment, but strength.

And, leagues will be grouped in the playoffs, not individual schools.

“This is great, this is good news,” said CdM boys tennis coach Tim

Mang.

Corona del Mar, by virtue of its small enrollment, has been relegated

to Division V competition in the tennis playoffs. The Pacific Coast

League, with University and Laguna Beach involved, as well, would appear

to be in line to return to Division I status.

Corona del Mar volleyball coach Steve Conti said he wasn’t sure where

his Sea Kings would fit in the overall picture, although they would

surely move to a higher division.

“I think it’s good news,” said Conti. “But I’m not sure where we’ll

go.”

The general consensus is that the system will place the strongest

teams in the higher divisions. The downside is that some third-place

schools, which earn a playoffs berth, will find the waters deep because

of being lumped in with the bigger divisions because of the league’s high

status.

This is why until recently, single schools could opt to move up,

leaving the rest of the league’s schools in a competitive circle. That,

however, was shot down by a Los Alamitos High-based proposal which passed

in recent years to end the option of small schools to move up in

classification (i.e. Corona del Mar volleyball moving to Division I

status).

Corona del Mar, for instance, was the CIF Division I boys tennis

champion in 1999. Two years later the Sea Kings were champions again in

Division V.