Roosevelt coach can’t believe his good fortune

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Call it Classic II. Or Classic Rewind.

Garfield and Roosevelt will meet a second time this year, and there’s more at stake than East L.A. bragging rights. The teams will face each other in the first round of the Invitational playoffs. Garfield (7-3) is seeded second, Roosevelt (5-5) is seeded 15th.

Roosevelt, which beat Garfield, 23-15, on Nov. 2, was not one of the original 16 teams selected for the Invitational bracket. But Jefferson, Garfield’s scheduled playoff opponent, did not exchange game film with Garfield by the Saturday deadline of 1 p.m., so Roosevelt, the first alternate team, replaced Jefferson.

‘I went from the lowest low to the highest high in the span of a half hour,’ Roosevelt Coach Javier Cid said. ‘I thought we would get in, and when we didn’t, I was devastated. And of all the teams not to show to exchange film, it was the one playing Garfield.’

-- Mike Terry

-- Image from www.usarec.army.mil