PREP NOTES : Laguna Beach Football Might Leave the Pacific Coast League

Laguna Beach High officials are taking steps to remove the Artists’ football program from the Pacific Coast League in favor of playing a free-lance schedule or joining another league by next season, Assistant Principal Tim Sullivan said Thursday.

Sullivan said officials discussed the possible move at a league meeting Tuesday and the league principals will meet after Thanksgiving to vote on the proposal.

“We’re still in the information-gathering stage,” Sullivan said. “We want to be sensitive to the needs of the other schools in the league and not leave them high and dry.

“We’re looking at playing either a free-lance schedule or joining another league with schools more comparable in size and more competitive at the football level. We’re looking at possible free-lance schools to fill our place (in league).”

With 650 students, Laguna Beach is the smallest public high school in Orange County. The varsity football roster had only 26 players this season.

Laguna Beach is 0-15 in league play the last three years and was outscored, 226-51, this season.

The Artists were 1-9 this season, with their victory coming against the Dana Hills junior varsity. But the Artists played nonleague opponents San Bernardino Aquinas, El Segundo, Orange Lutheran and Coronado and lost all within 13 points or fewer.

“When the scores are significantly discrepant (in league),” Sullivan said, “there’s a feeling, can we even be close?”

Laguna Beach is in the first year of a two-year league contract, but the Artists could leave the league by next year with the approval of league principals. Sullivan said all other Laguna Beach sports, such as volleyball and tennis, would continue to compete in the Pacific Coast League.

Sullivan said he hasn’t discussed the matter “at length” with Mike Barron, the football team’s first-year coach.

Former Mater Dei High quarterback Derek Uhl has transferred to Trabuco Hills High, and is eligible to play for the Mustangs in their Southern Section Division VIII playoff game tonight against Riverside Notre Dame.

But Uhl isn’t expected to play for the Mustangs (9-1), who start Pat Barnes, one of the county’s top quarterbacks.

“I can’t worry about him right now because I don’t have anywhere to play him,” Trabuco Hills Coach Jim Barnett said. “I’m going to let (Mustang basketball Coach) Rainer Wulf worry about getting him out on the basketball court.”

Uhl, a 6-foot-5, 208-pound junior, started seven games for the Monarchs, completing 78 of 139 passes for 924 yards, seven touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He quit the team last week after Monarch Coach Bruce Rollinson replaced him with John Flynn.

Uhl enrolled at Trabuco Hills this week, and is immediately eligible because his parents moved from Irvine and leased a home in the Trabuco Hills district, Barnett said.