Orange Glen, Rancho Buena Vista Receive No. 1 Seedings for the Playoffs

Orange Glen and Rancho Buena Vista, the county’s only two unbeaten high school teams, Saturday received the top seedings in the San Diego Section football playoffs.

Orange Glen (10-0), champion of the Palomar League and ranked No. 3 in the county by The Times, is the No. 1 seed in the 3-A division. Avocado League champion Rancho Buena Vista (10-0), ranked by The Times as the county’s No. 1 team in only the school’s second year, is seeded No. 1 in the 2-A division. Both teams receive first-round byes.

The first four-seeded teams in the 3-A and 2-A divisions receive first-round byes on Friday, the opening day of the playoffs. Morse (8-2), ranked No. 2 by The Times, is seeded second in the 3-A division, Chula Vista (7-3) is third and Granite Hills (7-2-1) is fourth.

Rounding out the 3-A brackets are defending 3-A champion Point Loma (4-6), Patrick Henry (7-3) and Mira Mesa (8-2) of the City Eastern League, San Dieguito (7-2) and Poway (5-4-1) of the Palomar League, Helix (7-1-1) and Mt. Miguel (7-2) of the 3-A Grossmont League and Southwest (8-2) of the Metro Conference.

In the 2-A division, Lincoln (9-1), ranked No. 6 by The Times, is the No. 2 seed, University City (7-2) is No. 3 and Santana (5-4) is No. 4.

The rest of the 2-A lineup includes University of San Diego High School (7-3) and Kearny (4-6) of the City Western League, El Camino (7-2-1), Oceanside (7-3), and defending 2-A co-champion San Pasqual (6-4) of the Avocado League, Valhalla (5-5) and Grossmont (7-3) of the 2-A Grossmont League, and Crawford (7-3) of the City Central League.

After the automatic qualifiers, the Football Advisory Committee selected four 3-A and three 2-A at-large berths.

“I think this was the toughest decision the advisory committee had to make in years,” Bennie Edens, Point Loma coach, said. “A lot of teams could have been in the playoffs. This was a year there could have easily been 16 teams in the playoffs and the playoffs would have been in fair shape. Many years there aren’t 16 quality teams.”

Poway edged out Fallbrook and Sweetwater for the final 3-A at-large berth by virtue of its 20-20 tie with Torrey Pines Friday night. Poway scored 14 fourth-quarter points and finished one-half game ahead of fourth-place Fallbrook (5-5) in the Palomar League. Sweetwater (Metro Conference) also finished 5-5.

“Yeah, I was nervous,” Brad Elrod, Poway coach, said after the seeding meeting. “We kicked a couple of extra points last night or else we might not have gone through this.”

The most talked-about subject of the day, however, was the 4-team 2-A Grossmont League’s 3-way tie for first place. League champions are guaranteed playoff spots, and there is no provision for choosing only one champion in case of a tie--no matter how large or small the league. Thus, Grossmont, Santana and Valhalla all qualified for the playoffs, leaving only El Cajon Valley behind.

The extra Grossmont League qualifiers took away two at-large playoff berths that likely would have gone to one of the 2-A Grossmont League teams and Carlsbad (6-3-1, 3-3-1), which finished fifth in the Avocado League.

“There was consideration of Carlsbad as an at-large entry, but it was tough because of the fact that we lost an at-large berth because of the tri-champions,” San Diego Section commissioner Kendall Webb said.

Despite Grossmont’s best overall record, Santana won a coin flip held among the three schools to gain the league’s top seed and a first-round bye. Because league champions are guaranteed to play at home if they are scheduled in the first round, Grossmont will host San Pasqual and Valhalla hosts El Camino, despite El Camino’s superior record.

“Playing on the road is the disappointing part,” Herb Meyer, El Camino coach, said. “As our conference’s second-place team, we thought we’d have a home game. It was my understanding that if teams tied for first, the league would designate its No. 1 representative, and the other two would be at-large teams.”

Webb said a change might occur in the future.

“I’ve heard some people talking about making the league decide on two teams for automatic berths if there is a 3-way tie, and I’ve heard other people say they would like to keep giving tri-champions (automatic) berths if the league has ‘x’ number of teams,” Webb said. “I’m sure the committee will make a recommendation to change the rule, and I would support that.”