These playoff runs are merely crawling to the finish line

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Barring any flat tires or closed freeways, I plan to cover the Inland Division championship game between Corona Centennial and Corona Santiago on Saturday at noon at the Home Depot Center, write up a game story and head east to the Eastern Division final between Palm Desert and visiting Riverside North at 7 p.m.

I don’t drink coffee, but I may need to start, based on the quality of these matchups.

How could the Inland Division playoffs be so apparently one-sided? What happened to Redlands East Valley vs. Vista Murrieta? Or the winner of that game vs. Centennial in the championship game? Heck, I would have settled for watching Miller quarterback A.J. Springer try his luck against Centennial. Any seeded team vs. any seeded team!

Instead, we have one of the best teams in the country (Centennial) matched against the division’s lone wild card (Santiago) in a Mountain View League rematch won the first time around by Centennial, 69-7. Too bad I won’t be able to get an early start to the desert.

The Eastern Division final excites me, only slightly more and that’s probably because I’ll be reading the Sunday paper with my feet in the pool, without the wife and kids to distract me.

I watched North beat another Desert Valley League team, La Quinta, in last year’s Eastern Division final and that game was so exciting, my friend went to his car at halftime and fell asleep.

At least the Pac-5 Division got a good matchup, even if the gate and concessions won’t benefit from any of that Orange County private-school money.

-- Dan Arritt

-- Image from www.roadtripusa.com