High School Football: It’s playoff time!
Jeff Brinkley and his coaching staff went back to work at Newport Harbor High on Sunday morning to prepare for the CIF Southern Section football playoffs. At around 10:45, Brinkley said he found out the playoffs would not include the Sailors.
Finishing in third place in the always-tough Sunset League was not enough for Newport Harbor to make the 16-team bracket in Division 6. The news obviously disappointed Brinkley, in his 31st year at the helm of Newport Harbor.
For the first time under Brinkley, the Sailors failed to make the postseason for the second straight year.
West Covina, the third-place team from the Hacienda League, earned the final berth into the Division 6 playoffs, beating out Newport Harbor. West Covina went 6-4 overall and Newport Harbor was 5-5.
“For whatever reason, the committee … decided that [West Covina] had a better [league],” said Brinkley, whose Sailors shared one common opponent with West Covina, that being Hacienda Heights Los Altos, which beat the Sailors, 35-23, in a nonleague game on Sept. 23, and defeated West Covina, 24-0, in a Hacienda League game last Friday. “When you look at our body of work, the teams that we lost to, [Corona del Mar, Los Altos, Manhattan Beach Mira Costa and Edison], every team … won their league, except for Los Alamitos, [which] was second place [in the Sunset League].
“I feel sorry for my seniors. The kids were in tears. It’s a shame that it happened to them. Every division, one through 10, the third-place team [from a league] made [the playoffs], except for our division.”
A couple of days after the release of the playoff pairings, Brinkley wasn’t the only Sunset League coach shaking his head at the section committee leaving Newport Harbor out of the playoffs.
“That’s ridiculous,” Edison Coach Dave White said. “[The Sailors are] third [in league] and Huntington [Beach is] fourth, [and the Oilers qualify as an at-large team in the Division 7 playoffs]. I don’t know why they’re in different divisions. They either both should be in [Division 6] or both in [Division 7]. There [are] a lot of flaws. [Newport Harbor not getting in is] a flaw. Brethren Christian not getting in [the Division 10 playoffs with a 9-1 record is] a flaw. They’ve got to figure out a better way.”
The section committee did get a couple of things right involving local teams.
As expected, Edison and Corona del Mar were the only two schools in the area earning high seeds in the playoffs. The Sunset League champion Chargers are No. 2 in Division 3, while the Pacific Coast League champion Sea Kings are No. 3 in Division 4.
The other local teams that are playoff bound are Huntington Beach in Division 7, Los Amigos in Division 12 and Laguna Beach in Division 13. The Oilers finished fourth in the Sunset League, Los Amigos shared second in the Garden Grove League and the Breakers placed second in the Orange Coast League.
Below are the first-round matchups:
Edison (9-1) plays host to Newbury Park (7-3) at Cap Sheue Field on Friday at 7 p.m. Newbury Park came in second in the Camino League.
CdM (9-1) entertains Murrieta Mesa (5-5) at Jim Scott Stadium on Friday at 7 p.m. Murrieta Mesa took fourth in the Southwestern League.
Huntington Beach (4-6) plays at Tustin (8-2) on Friday at 7 p.m. Tustin shared the Empire League title.
Los Amigos (6-4) plays at No. 2-seeded Rancho Mirage (8-2) on Thursday at 7 p.m. Rancho Mirage won the De Anza League championship.
Laguna Beach (6-4) plays at Duarte (7-3) on Friday at 7:30 p.m. Duarte claimed the Montview League crown.
The Chargers have a tough opener for the second straight year. They face the runner-up finisher from the Camino League, which sent three of its four teams to the playoffs. The Camino League is home to first-place Calabasas (10-0), the top seed in Division 5, and third-place Moorpark (7-3), a Division 5 at-large entry.
The Panthers have also played a daunting schedule outside of league, beating Oxnard Pacifica, which received the top seed in Division 7, and losing to two Division 2 teams, Valencia of Valencia and Westlake Village Oaks Christian.
White, in his 31st and final year in charge of Edison, likes how is team is entering the playoffs, unlike last year, when he had eight starters out with injuries. Edison is healthy and averaging 50 points per game in the last three weeks.
But White said he was a little surprised with the Chargers seeing a contender like Newbury Park right away in the playoffs.
“I think there [are] two teams playing against each other [in the first round] that aren’t as good as [Newbury Park],” said White, referring to Phelan Serrano (8-2) and Whittier La Serna (7-3). “I think Newbury Park is better than both of them, and they’re playing each other.”
