Home Site Lost for Want of Seats : Prep football: Rialto fans angered when stadium is called too small for Eisenhower’s playoff against Bishop Amat.

Eisenhower High’s semifinal playoff football game against La Puente Bishop Amat will not be played at Rialto on Friday night, even though Eisenhower won a coin flip that allowed it to pick the site.

Southern Section officials told Eisenhower administrators earlier this week that the school’s stadium, which holds 7,500, was not big enough to handle the anticipated crowd of 10,000. They asked the school to move the game to a larger site.

The closest large stadium is at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, 40 miles west of Rialto. Mt. SAC’s 10,000-seat stadium is six miles from Bishop Amat.

“We won the flip and they get the home-field advantage,” said Edna Herring, Eisenhower’s principal. “Something is very wrong with this system. This incident goes to show you how many problems still exist in the CIF.”

Bishop Amat (12-0), ranked No. 1 by The Times, and No. 6 Eisenhower (10-1-1) each won Division I quarterfinal games last Friday. Because each school had been the site of one playoff game and played once on the road, a coin flip was held Saturday morning to determine the home team. Eisenhower won and elected to hold the game on its campus.

Mark Paredes, Bishop Amat’s coach and athletic director, surveyed Eisenhower’s field on Monday and determined that the visitor’s bleachers could not accommodate the 5,000 fans the school figured it would bring.

Stan Thomas, Southern Section commissioner, concurred with Paredes and told Herring to move the game. Thomas later changed his mind and said that the game could be played at Eisenhower if enough portable bleachers could be added to bring capacity to 10,000.

“The bottom line here is that we don’t want 7,500 people watching the game and another 3,000 outside milling around,” Thomas said. “When you have 3,000 people standing outside who want into the game, you have a lot of potential problems on your hands. I don’t think we could guarantee a safe environment in that situation.”

The move has upset the Rialto community. More than 3,000 signatures were collected this week in protest of the move. The city council passed a resolution Tuesday night, backing the petition. Gerald Johnson, a city administrator, asked Thomas to reconsider his decision.

Herring said that the school considered adding portable bleachers to meet the requirements set by Thomas, but she said there were too many demands that went along with adding seats.

“They wanted a lot of other promises that made it difficult on us,” she said. “All I can tell you is that there are a lot of angry people here. I sure hope Bishop Amat brings all the fans it says it will, or this will not be a pleasant situation.”

Herring said the school will order as many buses as necessary to ensure that fans will be able to get to the game.

Bishop Amat is enjoying its finest season since Paredes took over seven years ago. Eisenhower lost to Santa Ana Mater Dei in the Division I championship last year.

The situation is not new to the Southern Section. In 1990, for instance, Lompoc and Arroyo Grande moved their Division VII title game from Arroyo Grande to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo at the request of the Southern Section.