Council Approves Realignment Plan : Preps: Southern Section panel OKs proposal after an eight-month process. Appeal by El Toro and Servite is denied.

The long, sometimes confusing, process of realigning Orange County’s high school athletic leagues has come to an end, for now.

The Southern Section Council approved the proposal, submitted Thursday at its fall meeting, while denying an appeal made jointly by Servite and El Toro high schools. The new structure will go into effect next fall and run through the 1998 school year.

The proposal already had survived appeals to the executive committee in August. Its approval brings to a close an eight-month ordeal in which county principals had to start from scratch twice.

Their first plan was returned by Stan Thomas, then section commissioner, in March. He ordered principals to set down criteria for the process, and they came up with a plan to place schools in leagues by enrollment, geographic location and competitive equity.

A second proposal was returned by the executive committee in June. It ruled that principals had not followed their own criteria.

The final proposal, one of 34 submitted by principals, was challenged by El Toro Principal Jack Clement and Servite Principal Raymond Dunne on the grounds that it again did not meet the criteria.

El Toro officials were unhappy about being moved from the South Coast League to the Sea View. Servite officials were unhappy about being moved from the Sunset League to the county’s new league, which does not have a name yet.

Mater Dei Principal Lyle Porter also spoke against the proposal but did not make an official appeal. Mater Dei officials had hoped to be placed in the Sunset League but will remain in the South Coast.

Western Principal Warren Stevenson, chairman of the league realignment committee, said an overwhelming majority of the principals had been in favor of the proposal. It was approved, 44-8-8, by them in June.

The plan puts the county’s 62 public and parochial schools in 10 leagues. All have six schools, except the Garden Grove League, which will have seven. Servite, an all-boys’ school, and Rosary, which is all girls, are treated as one.

The new plan will be in effect for four years, when the next league alignment cycle is scheduled, unless Orange County forms its own athletic section, according to Porter. County administrators have been moving toward that for more than a year.

In other action:

--The council vetoed a proposal to guarantee playoff berths in every sport to the approximately half the teams in each league. The “50% rule,” would have assured spots for four teams from seven-, eight- and nine- team leagues.

--Voted down was a proposal that would have allowed students who turn 19 after July 1 to participate in sports. Currently, a student is ineligible if he or she turns 19 before Sept. 1.

How the Leagues Will Look

Century: Canyon, El Modena, Foothill, Orange, Santa Ana Valley, Villa Park

Empire: Century, Cypress, El Dorado, Katella, Kennedy, Loara

Freeway: Buena Park, Fullerton, La Habra, Sonora, Sunny Hills, Troy

Garden Grove: Bolsa Grande, Garden Grove, La Quinta, Los Amigos, Pacifica, Rancho Alamitos, Santiago

Orange: Anaheim, Brea-Olinda, Magnolia, Savanna, Valencia, Western

Pacific Coast: Aliso Niguel, Costa Mesa, Estancia, Laguna Beach, Laguna Hills, University

Sea View: Corona del Mar, El Toro, Irvine, Newport Harbor, Santa Margarita, Woodbridge

South Coast: Capistrano Valley, Dana Hills, Mater Dei, Mission Viejo, San Clemente, Trabuco Hills

Sunset: Edison, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Los Alamitos, Marina, Esperanza

New (to be named): Ocean View, Saddleback, Santa Ana, Servite/Rosary, Tustin, Westminster