Seizing a Golden Opportunity : Football: Realignment allows Canyon and company to compete on tough Division I level.

Watch out, Fontana. Don’t look now, Long Beach Poly.

Here comes the Golden League, charging hard out of the Santa Clarita Valley and the high desert, leaving behind a trail of dust and Division II football.

A new decade has brought with it Southern Section realignment, and, for the Golden League, big-time football.

Turn those floodlights north of the San Fernando Valley. The Golden League, ladies and gentlemen, has gone Division I.

“The CIF took a look and saw the caliber of play in the Golden League,” Saugus High Coach Dick Flaherty said. “We’re a talented and physical league.”

It was just two years ago in 1988--the first year that the Southern Section went to a divisional format--that the Golden League flexed its biceps and landed three teams in the playoff semifinals: Canyon, Antelope Valley and Palmdale. Antelope Valley wound up Southern Section Division II champion, and the point was clear: This is one rough-and-tumble league.

Last year was a bit of a down year for the league, by most coaches’ admissions, but Canyon nevertheless advanced to the Division II semifinal before entering the Twilight Zone and losing a much-publicized and tainted 28-27 decision to Santa Barbara.

Now, with all of that history, the top three teams in the league will advance to the playoffs to meet the Redlands, Edisons and Bishop Amats of Division I.

“Sure I’m scared of those guys. Sure I’m scared of Long Beach Poly and Fontana,” Canyon Coach Harry Welch said. “But you know what? I still like Cowboy football. I think we can contend.”

Flaherty concurs.

“It’s all relative and I don’t see all the other leagues, the Angelus and the Sunset League,” he said. “But I think the top three or four teams in our league can make a real good account of ourselves.”

Those big-time, top-10 teams aside, most Golden League coaches believe the real difference will be felt in the early rounds of the Division I playoffs. As Welch points out, the top teams in Division II--say, the likes of Muir or El Toro--are nearly equal in talent to the teams at the top of Division I. The real pinch for Golden League playoff entries will be in facing playoff teams that fill out berths 12 through 16.

“At the very top, a Muir is as talented as a Fontana,” Welch said. “But in the playoffs, with 16 teams, the teams that fill out the brackets in Division I are far superior to those of Division II.”

Quartz Hill, ranked No. 5 in Division I in the preseason Southern Section sportswriters’ poll--ahead of even Canyon, which is listed No. 9--likely is playoff-bound, and Coach John Albee is cognizant of what lies ahead.

“Oh, it’s a step up,” Albee said. “The playoffs will be tougher. We’ve got to face more teams that are more balanced.”

So how does the Golden League fit into this new world?

Quite well, would be the prediction here. Exacting nonleague schedules for teams such as Canyon, Quartz Hill, Antelope Valley and Palmdale will prepare them well for the rigors of postseason.

Consider the heavyweights awaiting Antelope Valley: Hawthorne (ranked No. 1 in Division III), West Bakersfield, at Redlands (ranked No. 3 in Division I), at Loyola (ranked No. 7 in Division I) and El Toro (ranked No. 1 in Division II).

“You learn from playing the good teams,” Antelope Valley Coach Brent Newcomb said.

Canyon, which has won seven of the past eight Golden League titles under Welch and is 39-1 in league play in the same span, traditionally starts slowly because of a nasty preleague schedule. Ultimately, these early-season trials by fire prepare the Cowboys for a tough stretch run.

On Thursday, Canyon will open its season in Hawaii against St. Louis High of Honolulu, which holds the nation’s longest current winning streak (54). After that, Canyon faces Hart (ranked No. 7 in Division III), Notre Dame (ranked No. 8 in Division III), Thousand Oaks (ranked No. 5 in Division II) and traditional Division III power Leuzinger.

For Quartz Hill, the preleague schedule will bring Hart, South Bakersfield and San Gorgonio, runner-up to Fontana in the 1989 Division I title game and ranked No. 6.

“We know we’re going to have to play like hell,” Albee said. “We’ve got to play these people if we want to be good.”

Point being, Division I should not faze these golden boys from the Golden League.

Canyon’s tradition being what it is, the Cowboys again have to be the favorite. And Canyon even has to have some Division I coaches a mite worried. After all, Cowboy success in the postseason has been such that Welch believes that “the move to Division I was the CIF making a statement to Canyon High.”

With Quartz Hill, Palmdale and even Antelope Valley eager for prime-time action, 1990 seems to be a year in which the Golden League is primed to make a statement to Division I.

“Last year we were a little down as a league,” Welch said. “But we’ll be back this year. Write it down. Count on it.”

GOLDEN LEAGUE

FINAL 1989 STANDINGS PROJECTED FINISH Canyon 8-4-1, 5-0 Canyon Quartz Hill 6-5, 4-1 Quartz Hill Palmdale 3-8, 2-3 Palmdale Antelope Valley 3-7, 2-3 Antelope Valley Saugus 4-6, 1-4 Saugus Burroughs (R) 1-9, 1-4 Burroughs (R)

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Player School Pos. Ht. Wt. Class John Artimovich Canyon OL 5-11 226 Sr. Scott Blade Canyon LB 6-0 189 Sr. Vashon LeCesne Palmdale LB 6-3 215 Sr. David Nelson Quartz Hill DB 5-10 200 Sr. Rick Nichols Antelope Valley OL 6-2 255 Sr. Mark Santos Canyon DB 5-10 176 Sr. Selves Smith Quartz Hill RB-LB 6-0 205 Sr. Erik Thomas Quartz Hill RB 5-10 180 Jr. Kalonji Watts Palmdale RB-DB 5-11 180 Sr. Rodney Williams Palmdale QB 6-0 180 Sr.