Coaches Move to Cut Number of WSC Games : Junior college baseball: They believe Valley College was excluded from playoffs because of fewer nonconference contests.

Because they are upset over the exclusion of Valley College from the junior college baseball playoffs, Western State Conference coaches have proposed major scheduling and realignment changes for next season that they hope will prevent similar presumed slights.

At Tuesday’s regularly scheduled WSC meeting, baseball coaches voted to scrap the 30-game conference schedule and split the conference into two five-team divisions next season. The divisional split hinges on the expected cancellation of the Santa Monica program.

A 26-game schedule would call for teams playing intradivisional rivals four times each and interdivisional foes twice each.

The proposed changes, which will be submitted to the WSC ruling body, comes in the wake of the announcement Monday of the Southern California regional playoff pairings that included Canyons and Pierce but excluded Valley, which tied Pierce for second place.

Canyons (29-8, 26-4 in conference play) won the conference title and is seeded No. 2 in the regional and Pierce (22-15, 19-11) is seeded 14th. The Brahmas received the second of the conference’s automatic berths because they swept Valley in three conference games.

In the past, the top three teams in the 11-team WSC usually have earned playoff berths.

Last year, Pierce and Cuesta advanced to the four-team state championships. But this year’s seeding committee looked elsewhere to fill the 16 regional berths in the south.

Five of the seven teams in the Orange Empire Conference made the cut, as well as three of the six teams in both the South Coast and Pacific Coast conferences. It was a decision that surprised Chris Johnson, Valley’s coach.

“Something went on in the seeding meeting,” said Johnson, who guided the Monarchs to a 20-16 record. “When our second-place team (Pierce) gets seeded below some other (inferior) teams. . . . We (WSC) got a slap in the face.”

Both Canyons Coach Len Mohney, who attended Monday’s seeding meeting, and Johnson, who didn’t, fell short of accusing other coaches of political maneuvering.

However, they speculated that the long WSC schedule irked coaches from other conferences who believed that they could not gauge the strength of WSC teams because those teams did not play enough nonconference games.

“That, I believe, was definitely a factor,” Johnson said.

Said Mohney: “The only thing I can say is that our conference was hurt because of our long conference schedule.”

Under the proposed changes, Canyons, Glendale, Pierce, Valley and Bakersfield would form the South Division, and Moorpark, Oxnard, Ventura, Santa Barbara and Cuesta would form the North Division.

The WSC adopted the 30-game schedule this season after using a 20-game format since 1989. “We are doing some revamping,” Mohney said. “This could be the first and last year of the 30-game schedule.”