STRENGTH IN NUMBERSFour leagues with strong area...

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

Four leagues with strong area ties have placed four teams in the CIF Southern Section football playoffs, which begin Friday.

St. Paul (7-3) won an at-large berth in Division I. Top-ranked La Puente Bishop Amat (10-0), Loyola (7-3) and Crespi (6-4) were the other qualifiers from the Del Rey League.

San Gabriel Valley League champion Paramount (10-0) joins Dominguez (8-1), Gahr (6-4) and Warren (6-4) in postseason Division II play.

In Division VIII, La Mirada (9-1), the champion, and Bellflower (8-2), Norwalk (5-5) and Artesia (5-5) have all received first-round berths.

And in Division X, Valley Christian (7-3) received an at-large berth, despite finishing as the fourth seed from the Olympic League. Cypress Brethren Christian (8-2) won the title, followed by Ontario Christian (8-2) and Calvary Chapel (5-5) of Santa Ana.

The top three teams in each league receive automatic playoff berths. But in many of the 11 divisional races, a few wild card or at-large berths were available. Team schedules, balanced league play and reputations often figure into who gets the at-large berths.

Warren, for instance, was the 1992 San Gabriel Valley League champion. This season the Bears (6-4) played everyone tough in the highly regarded, balanced conference, enough to earn an at-large berth.

The same was true for Artesia (5-5), which not only shared the 1992 Suburban League title with La Mirada, but beat the Mats as well. Then last week, La Mirada, which has been held to less than 14 points only twice this season, escaped with a 9-7 victory over the Pioneers.

Once ranked No. 1 in Division X, Valley Christian has stumbled, but the Crusaders have been to the playoffs all but once in the past 16 years. That was good enough for officials at the Southern Section office, who also liked the fact that Valley Christian started the season 5-0, with wins over three teams from larger divisions.

St. Paul sealed its bid with 10-9 upset of Loyola Saturday.

FAMILIAR FACES

There aren’t many football coaches who have dominated Mater Dei. Marijon Ancich might be alone in that class.

Wherever he’s coached, at St. Paul or Tustin, Ancich has always seemed to have the Monarchs’ number.

So Mater Dei’s reward for winning the South Coast League was a date with its old nemesis. The Monarchs (9-1) play the Swordsmen (7-3), with Ancich back at the helm, on Friday at Santa Ana Stadium in the first round of the Division I playoffs.

“That’s a tough draw for us,” Mater Dei Coach Bruce Rollinson said.

Mater Dei hasn’t beaten an Ancich-coached team since 1966. Then, Rollinson was a running back for the Monarchs. St. Paul won 14 consecutive games in the series from 1967-80.

The Monarchs ended that streak in 1981, but by then Ancich had moved on.

HURRAH FOR THEM

Four groups of cheerleaders from the Long Beach Pop Warner Football League excelled at the recent Orange Empire Conference Cheerleading Championships.

The Midgets and Pee Wee teams finished first. The Junior Pee Wee team finished second and the Junior Midgets team was third. All qualified to perform in an exhibition Sunday at Sea World in San Diego.

About 1,500 girls competed in front of 5,000 spectators at Artesia High. Many of the competitors go on to serve on cheer squads at local high schools.

“Our football players are groomed to play football at high schools in Long Beach and we groom our cheerleaders to participate in high school as well,” spokeswoman Suzann Milkey said.