Garden Grove League Rises in the Ranks : Prep football: A number of factors are helping the league to break free from its losing image.

You’ve come a long way, baby.

That old cigarette company slogan seems a perfect fit for this season’s new, improved Garden Grove football league, which for the first time in five years has two of its own ranked among the county’s elite.

The two--No. 4 Garden Grove (9-0, 6-0 in league) and No. 6 Rancho Alamitos (8-0-1, 6-0)--conclude what has been a very competitive year in the league with game to determine the championship at 7:30 tonight at Garden Grove High.

Both are guaranteed Southern Section Division VI playoff berths regardless of tonight’s outcome, with Pacifica (7-3, 5-2) claiming the league’s third entry. And at least a couple other teams might have qualified for the playoffs if they didn’t play in the eight-team Garden Grove League.

None of which surprises Bill Craven, the dean of the league’s coaches, who this season will take Pacifica to its 13th playoff appearance in his 16 years at the school.

“We went into the season thinking it would be a very balanced league,” Craven said. “In La Quinta or Santiago (vying for fourth place tonight) we are going to have a team that might get a wild-card spot (for the playoffs).”

Several factors have contributed to the league’s gradual metamorphosis from patsy to respectable. Among them is what Garden Grove Coach Jeff Buenafe believes is a rippling effect. “I think one of the reasons for the improvement is that year in and year out, with the success of teams like Pacifica and La Quinta in previous years, it has been a motivating force with the other teams to dig in and become better in order to survive,” said Buenafe, who is in his fourth season as head coach of the Argonauts.

Art Michalik, now the lines coach at Garden Grove and formerly a head coach at Pacifica and Los Amigos, offers another explanation.

“It seems that things got better in the last couple of years when the district changed sixth period to an athletic period, which has given us more time to work with the kids,” Michalik said. “I remember when we had to be out of the locker room by 5 p.m. because the league and district rules wouldn’t allow us more time to practice. . . . Now, athletics seem to be more important than before (among league schools).”

And perhaps also among students at those schools. As La Quinta Coach Roger Takahashi sees it, it takes many interested and committed players to anchor a winning program. The Garden Grove League, Takahashi said, is enjoying an excellent crop of players.

“The league has hit one of those cycle-type things when a lot of good athletes pop up at the same time,” said Takahashi, who took the Aztecs to the league title last season, his sixth at the helm. “When that happens, it makes all the difference.”

Craven agrees: “There’s the unique situation when a school will have two outstanding athletic classes back-to-back. That happened to Bolsa (Grande) when they won it all (league title and Southern Section Central Conference championship) in 1986 and when they went to the semis the following year. It’s happening now at Garden Grove and Rancho Alamitos.”

Those two schools have benefited from outstanding personnel the past two seasons.

This year, for instance, Rancho Alamitos features a potent ground attack paced by junior tailback Jeff Byrd and junior fullback Leon Vickers. Byrd is second in the county in rushing with 1,394 yards and scoring with 140 points, and Vickers has 691 yards and 78 points. Quarterback Marshall Brown, also a junior, is a speedster who runs the Vaquero veer option well, and two of the team’s offensive linemen--senior guard Lia Togia and senior tackle James Cabral--are among the county’s best.

Garden Grove also has two capable ballcarriers in junior Jim Sebreros (806 rushing yards, 14 touchdowns) and senior Derek Smith (662 yards, four touchdowns), a bona fide collegiate prospect in senior tight end Adrian Ioja and a formidable linebacker in senior Doug Pluard, among others.

But even with all that talent, both teams have struggled at times against league opponents. Rancho Alamitos got a scare from Kennedy, hanging on for a 26-23 victory, and Garden Grove scored 19 fourth-quarter points to beat Bolsa Grande, 25-13. The Argonauts defeated Pacifica, 17-14, last week.

“I think that last year and this year our league has been as tough as any,” said Rancho Alamitos Coach Mark Miller, in his fifth season with the Vaqueros. “I can’t remember an easy game. I think we could have played with the South County teams this year.”

Some Garden Grove League teams did face opponents from the higher-regarded Central and South County leagues and handled themselves well. For example: Pacifica shut out Huntington Beach, 17-0; Garden Grove beat Laguna Hills, 14-7, and La Quinta barely lost to Estancia, 3-0. Laguna Hills and Estancia are playing for the Pacific Coast League title tonight, and Huntington Beach is in the hunt for the Sunset League championship.

The success of the Garden Grove League teams in nonleague games, and their respectable performances even in defeat, prompts Takahashi and Buenafe to think the league would be better served with fewer teams in it. Eight teams, they said, is too many and detrimental because only three receive automatic berths in the playoffs.

“That’s killing us,” Takahashi said. “It’s such a negative as far as trying to make the playoffs.”

Said Buenafe: “You could have five good teams, but unfortunately, the fourth- and fifth-place teams get lost in the shuffle. I think that the fourth- and fifth-place teams in our league very often are capable of holding their own in other leagues and would be very representative in the playoffs.”

Miller agrees, but figures that at least three good teams in the playoffs from a league that has been unfairly maligned in the past sends a clear message.

“We are starting to get some respect,” Miller said. “Our league is on a par with other leagues in the county.”