Football: Marmonte League votes to split into two divisions

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

There was big news out of the Marmonte League principals meeting on Tuesday, with a proposal to separate into two football divisions effective in 2012 approved by a vote of 6-4.

It means the 10-team league will become two five-team leagues, with the first place teams playing in a conference championship game in week 10, the two second-place teams playing and so on. Schools will have four league games and five nonleague games. This past season and next, they play only one nonleague game. The league is guaranteed four playoff berths.

The West Division will be made up of Oaks Christian, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Calabasas and Agoura. The East Division will have St. Bonaventure, Westlake, Royal, Newbury Park and Simi Valley.

The proposal was made by Agoura and came out of concern that schools in the bottom half of the league were not competitive and didn’t have a chance to schedule schools they could compete against. And emotions were high at the meeting.

‘Some schools are obviously not happy,’ said Calabasas Principal C.J. Foss, the president of the league.

St. Bonaventure provided the decisive vote in favor of the proposal.

St. Bonaventure Coach Todd Therrien said he loves the concept of a conference championship game similar to the SEC in college. He also will get to schedule five tough teams in nonleague games.

But the rivalry game between Thousand Oaks and Westlake could be coming to an end because Westlake Coach Jim Benkert said he doesn’t want to risk the possibility of having to play the Lancers three times in a year. The only time they could meet is in the league playoffs or the Northern Division playoffs.

Coaches will have to begin scrambling to find nonleague games in 2012. Still to be decided is the site for league championship games, among other questions.

-- Eric Sondheimer