Mesa, Eagles fall sports helped by CIF playoff changes
The girls’ tennis head coaching positions at Costa Mesa and Estancia high schools are both currently open.
When it comes to the CIF Southern Section playoffs, no coach in recent years has been able to put together a run, or even win a match. One reason has been that Laguna Beach has dominated the Orange Coast League for so long, and the Mustangs and Eagles were stuck with the Breakers in either the Division 1 or Division 2 playoffs.
That will be changing in the 2016-17 school year with the new playoff model announced by the section Friday. Schools will be put in CIF divisions for fall sports based not on league affiliation, but on a two-year, weighted-power-point total.
The changes will be implemented in girls’ tennis, girls’ volleyball and boys’ water polo, in addition to football, beginning next fall.
Laguna Beach girls’ tennis will be in Division 1 this fall, but Estancia will be in Division 3 and Costa Mesa was placed in Division 4.
“I think it’s great that Estancia was moved to D3,” former Eagles coach Rachel de Los Santos, a longtime advocate of such a change, said in a text message. “I am also happy to see some of other league teams in D4 as well. I think it’s long overdue, but I am happy that CIF tried to develop a more equitable way to place teams in competitive divisions. As long as Laguna Beach has been in the Orange Coast League and we have been in D1 or D2, making it to CIF playoffs was never that exciting, knowing we would lose in the first round. Now it gives Estancia and the other league teams a fair chance to compete in the playoffs and possibly even win championships.”
The two Costa Mesa high schools will also benefit in girls’ volleyball, where both will be in Division 5, instead of 2AA.
“I think that’s great for Estancia and Costa Mesa,” said CdM Coach Steve Astor, who knows the league’s setup well as he was an assistant coach for seven years at Laguna Beach. “It’s good to see that maybe they can make a run, get some people excited about the sport at those schools.”
Astor’s Sea Kings and Coach Dan Glenn’s Newport Harbor Sailors will be in Division 1 in girls’ volleyball, with Sage Hill in Division 3.
Newport Harbor, which missed the playoffs last year for the first time in Glenn’s 30-year tenure, barely made it into Division 1. It was the last of the 32 teams in the division based on the power ranking, which was weighted more heavily toward last year’s results.
Glenn said he’s happy about his squad staying in Division 1, as well as the new format. His team is one of four from the always-tough Sunset League in Division 1, along with Huntington Beach, Edison and Los Alamitos.
“I did not like the old system with the [Division] 1AA and 1A,” Glenn said. “The top, top teams were in the 1AA. The teams from 1A were always good, but the route that you had to take to get there was much tougher in 1AA.
“I like the fact they’re trying some different things ... It also doesn’t penalize the other teams in the league. It’s kind of like Corona del Mar being in the league that they’re in. Well, they’re a Division 1 school, but Irvine is not. I like that part of it. That part I think will be good, because then it won’t be so critical what league you’re in.”
The only team from the Pacific Coast League in Division 1 besides CdM is Woodbridge.
“I think it’s always been the toughest division in the country,” Astor said of the former Division 1AA. “I think now, it’s the toughest version of the toughest division in the country. I’m excited about that, as a competitor.”
In boys’ water polo, Costa Mesa Coach Dustin Serrano said he’s happy that the Mustangs remain in Division 3, instead of moving down as some had predicted. However, all of last year’s Division 3 semifinalists — Murrieta Valley, Capistrano Valley, Montebello and Laguna Beach — have moved up to Division 2.
Serrano, who coaches at Mesa with his twin brother Cody, last year guided the Mustangs to the first round of the Division 3 playoffs. They lost a close game at Montebello, 11-10.
“Cody, me and the boys were all hoping to stay in Division 3, because we felt like we had more to prove after going out early in CIF,” Dustin Serrano said. “I know they’ll be excited, because they wanted to have redemption back in Division 3. They didn’t want to drop down and work their way back up. We’re excited to stay up and compete against some of the higher-level teams.”
Estancia boys’ water polo, which will be led by first-year head man Mitch White, moves down from Division 3 to Division 6.
Sage Hill is in Division 4, while Corona del Mar and Newport Harbor will stay in Division 1, where half of the 16 teams are from Orange County.
Division 1 will also have some newcomers like Foothill, last year’s Division 2 champion, as well as Division 4 champion Righetti, Damien and Los Osos.
“We’ll see,” Newport Harbor Coach Ross Sinclair said. “I think it’s going to take a year or two to kind of iron out, see if they belong there, which I think is the purpose of it. It might be a rough first year for some of these teams, but maybe after a year or two it will iron out. I think it’ll be exciting. I’m looking forward to having some new faces in that division.”
