Sage Hill goes to eight-man football, picks coach

The coach to lead Sage Hill School in its transition to eight-man football is BJ Crabtree, said Megan Cid, the school’s athletic director, on Thursday.

“I’ve been coaching eight-man football for 15-plus years at [The] Pegasus [School in Huntington Beach] with the seventh- and eighth-graders, so easy transition for me in regards to Xs and Os,” said Crabtree, who teaches at Pegasus. “We’ve had a lot of ex players and students [from Pegasus] come to Sage. We’ve got a great connection.

“The [enrollment] numbers at Sage to me fits perfectly in eight-man.”

Crabtree, who is the father of Huntington Beach High standout Nick Crabtree, a Boise State-bound tight end, said he expects 20 kids to come out for the eight-man football program. This will be Crabtree’s first high school head coaching job, but he said he has served as an assistant football coach at Fountain Valley in the past.

Sage Hill dropped to eight-man football because of the low numbers in its 11-man program, Cid said. She added that Sage Hill has seven games scheduled for the 2016 season in the fall, and the team is looking to add two more games.

— David Carrillo Peñaloza