CIF playoffs: Local schools like CIF playoff changes

Barry Faulkner

Changes in the CIF Southern Section playoff landscape announced

Monday have received widespread approval from athletic administrators and

coaches across the Newport-Mesa District.

Athletic directors and coaches reached Tuesday reacted favorably to a

trend that will pit Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar high schools

against tougher postseason competition, while pitting Costa Mesa and

Estancia against playoff opponents that have traditionally achieved less

playoff success.

CdM boys tennis received its coveted return to Division I, for a

four-year cycle beginning next fall, while Newport Harbor boys volleyball

will also be competing for a Division I crown in years to come, after

this, the Sailors’ second season in Division II.

CdM girls tennis shifts from Division IV, where it won the last two CIF

section championships, back to Division I.

CdM will also return to the Division I ranks in boys water polo, after

winning three straight CIF Division II titles.

The Sea Kings girls water polo squad, which won the CIF Division IV title

last month, will compete in Division II the next four years.

Newport Harbor girls soccer, which earned the program’s first four

playoff victories the last two seasons in Division II, will shift to

Division I, while CdM girls soccer moves from Division IV to Division II.

The CdM girls’ move, however, is combined with the news that the Mission

League, with schools which have eliminated Coach Ron Evans’ Sea Kings in

the Division IV semifinals the last three seasons, will be in Division I.

Newport Harbor boys soccer remains in Division II with Corona del Mar,

while the boys and girls programs at Costa Mesa and Estancia will compete

in Division III.

Perhaps the most confusing changes occur in baseball, where CdM, which

stays in the Pacific Coast League with strong baseball programs at

Northwood and University, remains in Division IV.

Costa Mesa and Estancia, which shift out of the PCL to the Golden West

League, from which only Ocean View (the CIF Division IV champion in 1998)

boasts notable postseason success in recent years, will compete in

Division III.

But Kirk Bauermeister, Costa Mesa’s boys athletic director and baseball

coach, said he would accept the move with good will.

“I want what is best for the most amount of our programs,” Bauermeister

said. “If this is positive for 22 programs and negative for one

(baseball), I’m not going to be critical. Any system is not going to be

fair and equitable for everyone in every sport and for Uni and CdM to be

in Division IV and for us to be in Division III is not very equitable.

But this may have happened to the best program (at Mesa), because I’m

going to make the least amount of noise about it. I have Capistrano

Valley, Northwood and La Quinta on my schedule, so I’ve never been afraid

to compete with anyone. If we play well, we can compete with those

schools.”

The perceived inequity in baseball will also affect softball, where Mesa

and Estancia jump to Division III and CdM stays with the PCL in Division

IV.

CdM girls tennis coach Andy Stewart said he believed Division IV was the

toughest in the section last season, anyway, so a move to Division I is

hardly intimidating.

“If everyone plays in Division I, it will be more exciting,” Stewart

said. “We beat everybody in Division IV last year, which as very tough.”

The return to Division I means a potential renewal of the postseason

rivalry with Peninsula, as well as Back Bay rival Newport Harbor, which

reached the Division II title match last fall.

Stewart also noted former Division IV power Calabasas, which will play in

the Division I Marmonte League next season, “will be loaded.”

Evans, who was on the coaches’ association committee that gathered data

and proposed the new divisions in girls soccer, said he is very excited

about the new breakdown.

“There are still some good teams in Division II, including Arcadia from

the Pacific League,” Evans said. “(Arcadia) was ranked No. 1 in the

nation at one point last year.”

Evans said the Mission League will not be pleased to move into Division

I.

“But after winning CIF titles the last six years (in Divisions III and

IV), how can they complain?”

Estancia Boys Athletic Director Tim Parsel said his coaches were

encouraged by the changes.

“My main concern here is to try to get more athletes to stay interested

in spring sports,” Parsel said. “Maybe this will help. I know for

football (where the Eagles will join four leagues outside Orange County

in Division VII) it will mean a lot of traveling (for the playoffs). But

I’d like to have that problem.” (The school has not won a football

playoff game since 1980 and has been to the playoffs just twice since

‘89.)

Parsel said Golden West representatives expressed concern over the

baseball and softball groupings, but no plans for an appeal are pending.

CdM’s football division remains unchanged, while Newport Harbor in the

Sea View will welcome the Miramonte League, which includes former

Division VII powers Los Altos and Charter Oak, into its Division VI

configuration with the holdover Century, Empire and Suburban leagues.

Along with releaguing, which will take effect for the next four school

years, the changes were inspired by a last week’s CIF Southern Section

Council decision to make competitive equity, not enrollment, the leading

factor in determining playoff divisions for sports without state

playoffs.

Sports with state playoffs, such as girls volleyball and boys and girls

basketball, will remain in enrollment-based playoff divisions.

All playoff groupings may be appealed.