Huntington Beach Is Back, Will Face Fontana on Friday

Huntington Beach High School, which gained a playoff berth through a temporary retraining order Tuesday will take Fountain Valley’s spot in the Southern Section Division I playoffs, the Southern Section announced late Tuesday night.

Because of the court’s action, Sunset League officials were forced to meet Tuesday night to review the league’s playoff entries.

The league voted to reinstate Huntington Beach and replace Fountain Valley in the playoffs.

Huntington Beach will face Fontana (10-0, and top-seeded in Division I) at Fontana Friday at 7:30 p.m.

It will mark the first time two league champions--Huntington Beach shared the Sunset League title with Edison and Ocean View--have played against each other in the first round.

Asked about the possibility of playing Huntington Beach, Dick Bruich, Fontana coach, said “that would upset me” before he learned of the Southern Section’s decision.

It is standard Southern Section procedure that league champions are rewarded for their efforts by being matched against third-place teams in the first round. And seeded teams play the weakest teams.

Despite the odd pairing, Huntington Beach Coach George Pascoe was just glad to playing again.

“We don’t care right now who we play,” Pascoe said “We’re just happy to be playing instead of putting our gear away. It feels really great.”

The Southern Section’s alternative would have meant a complete reshuffling of the 16-team draw in order to give Fontana a third-place opponent.

In a sport where preparation is everything--scouting reports and film analysis take days to prepare, for example--such a move would have created chaos. Teams would not have adequate time to prepare for new opponents at such a late date.

At Fountain Valley, Coach Mike Milner had planned to put the Barons through their regularly scheduled practice today.

Fountain Valley players and coaches had thought their season was over after their 28-11 loss to Huntington Beach last Thursday.

“There was the usual tears after the last game,” Milner said.

But Saturday, Milner learned that his team would take Huntington Beach’s place in the playoffs.

Fountain Valley, as the league’s No. 3 representative and with a mediocre 5-5 record, was then matched against Fontana.

But now, Fountain Valley’s season will end for a second time.

Tuesday’s decision will likely effect yet another school--La Puente High.

Administrators at La Puente, which forfeited six games this season for an infraction similar to Huntington Beach’s, saw Huntington Beach’s court victory as “encouraging news.”

Coach Rick Kunishima said he would meet with his booster club Tuesday to “see if there’s somebody who will help us” in their fight to regain the forfeited games.

“I owe it to my kids to pursue this,” he said. “We’re going after this. The forfeitures weren’t the kids’ fault. So why are they being punished? The CIF is not the NFL or the NCAA. (This) gives us a lot of hope. We’re going after it.”

Times staff writers Tom Hamilton and Matt Lait contributed to this story.